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Are Your Customer Text Messages Truly Secure?

Adam Groff

July 01, 2015

If your small business is text message savvy, then it's important to make sure each SMS campaign is safe and secure.

With cybercrime and security breaches on the rise, text messages are no longer exempt from privacy threats.

With handheld security in mind, here are a few ways you can secure your text messaging and protect your customers' privacy:

Audit Regularly

Although your text message platform has all the most recent security and software updates, that doesn't mean security issues won't arise.

Even if you do stay on top of updates, new threats pop up every day. Because of this, it's important to audit your SMS activities regularly.

Auditing will help your small business pinpoint failures within your texting platform.

Whether it's a security loophole, less-than-adequate encryption, or a vulnerable opt-in process, weekly and monthly audits will help your business avoid any potential security breach issues.

Use Mobile Encryption

As the following article looks at, whether you need texting security for your small business or secure text messaging for your medical practice, encryption is your first line of defense. Encrypting all mobile devices associated with your business will reduce the chances of unauthorized access.

Most text message encryption software offers end-to-end protection, which means opt-ins and responses are protected on the customer end as well.

Likewise, encrypted texts also use new encryption keys with each new text, which makes them impossible for outside parties to track.

Inform Recipients of Potential Risks

When your customers are aware of the potential risks associated with text messaging, it can help reduce the chances of major security threats. Whether you use secure text messaging or not, it's important to keep your end users informed on security measures.

You can keep the sharing of personal information via text message to a minimum and ask your recipients to do the same.

Likewise, you can also encourage your recipients to use other forms of communication if they want to share private information.

Using text messaging as a conversation starter is much safer than using it as a personal information sharer.

Keep Opt-in and Opt-out Records

It's your responsibility as a business owner to thoroughly track all of your text message recipients.

Not only do opt-in and opt-out records help your business track campaign success rates, they also help you avoid the potential risks that can occur with idle text message activity.

Sometimes recipients can unofficially opt-out of a text message campaign leaving the user-end open and ripe for a security breach.

By keeping consistent records, you can figure out who has unofficially opted out based on inactivity and securely close text communications with their number. 

Be Aware of SMS Pitfalls

Knowing where text messaging security falls short can help your business better defend itself and its customers from security threats.

Keep mind that initial texts are almost always unverified and that there's no way to prioritize security measures from one text to the next.

In addition, knowing the inherent privacy difficulties of categorizing text recipients with their names and numbers is also important. If these pitfalls make you uneasy, you might want to research some of the secure SMS solutions available.

When your small business is ready to text, keep in mind the security procedures above.

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