Insider Incident Of The Month: The Growing Risk Of Sensitive Data Sent To Unauthorized Email Accounts
Proofpoint, Tuesday, August 5th, 2025
The Insider Incident of the Month blog series sheds light on the growing problem of email exfiltration of sensitive data to unauthorized accounts. It also examines how Proofpoint helps protect against these serious data loss events. Stories in this blog series are anonymized.   
In today's digital landscape, email is still one of the most widespread communication tools. However, email also carries a significant data security risk: the sending of sensitive data to unauthorized accounts. Often, the cause is simple carelessness. Other times, it comes from an insider threat such as a disgruntled or malicious employee. But one thing is always true: sensitive data loss through email can have devastating results. For businesses, these include reputational damage, regulatory fines, and financial losses. There's also the negative impact on individuals whose personal information has been shared or stolen.