World Cloud Security Day exposes the overlooked gap in cloud security: Outbound communication

Exclaimer today announced a reminder for organizations to prioritize email communications governance. On World Cloud Security Day, most organizations are focused on securing access to their cloud systems. But far fewer are asking a more difficult question: what happens after a user hits send? According to Exclaimer, one of the most under-governed areas of enterprise communication is outbound email.

Email continues to sit at the center of modern business operations, yet it is also one of the most widely used and least consistently governed communication channels. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, the average data breach in the US now costs $10.22 million, and it takes organizations an average of 258 days to identify and contain an incident. These findings highlight how gaps in visibility and control persist across the enterprise, including in how communication is created and sent.

Cloud security has matured significantly when it comes to controlling access to systems, but governance of communication within those systems hasn’t kept pace. Governance often breaks down at the point of execution, where individual users, manual processes, and fragmented tools create inconsistency and reduce control. Findings from Exclaimer’s State of Business Email 2025 report reinforce how widespread this gap has become, with 83% of organizations reporting issues related to email misuse, inconsistency, or risk.

A shift from access risk to communication risk

Exclaimer, recently named for its leadership in SaaS and cloud workplace culture at the 2025/26 Cloud Awards, says this highlights a broader issue in how businesses approach cloud security.

When 83% of organizations are already experiencing email-related challenges, this shows the issue is no longer awareness, but how consistently organizations can apply control. And control breaks down quickly when critical elements like disclaimers, branding, and compliance messaging are left to individual users to manage and implement. As communication scales, this challenge is only intensifying. IBM’s research shows that one in six data breaches now involve AI-driven attacks, underscoring how quickly the volume and complexity of communication is increasing.

The governance gap in enterprise communication

Findings from Exclaimer’s State of Business Email 2025 report reveal a growing gap between how organizations secure access and how they control communication. While investment in platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace continues to rise, only 41% have fully integrated email into their broader security and compliance stack.

In regulated industries, this can introduce real exposure, where missing or inconsistent information may fall short of legal or industry-specific requirements. Even outside of compliance risk, inconsistent outbound communication can erode trust, particularly when customers expect accuracy, professionalism, and clarity in every interaction.

Security at scale requires real-time control

As email volumes increase and communication becomes more distributed across users, devices, and AI-assisted tools, ensuring consistency can’t depend on manual action, it requires policy-driven enforcement that operates in real time, across the entire organization.

Learn more at www.exclaimer.com

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The IT Nerd

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading