Usage of insecure E-mail services among researchers with different scientific background.

ABSTRACT

AIM: Free web­based e-mail services are considered to have more security flaws than institutional ones, but they are frequently used among scientific researchers for professional communication. The aim of this study was to analyze frequency of usage of the insecure free e-mail services for professional communication among biomedical, economical and technical researchers, who published papers in one of three different journals Croatian Medical Journal, Automatika and Economic Research. METHODS: Contact details of the authors who provided their e­mail address from the papers published in those three journals during one year period were collected. These e­mail addresses were collected from the electronic archive of the journals in question. The domains of all e­mail addresses were assessed and contacts were categorized into three groups according to the following types world-wide known free web­based e­mail services, national Internet Service Provider (ISP) e-mail services, and institutional or corporate e-mail addresses. RESULTS: The proportion of authors using free web-based e-mail services, the least secure group type, was highest among biomedical researchers (17.8%) while every e­mail address collected from the technical journal belonged to the secured institutional e­mail group type. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that all researchers from the technical scientific field and most of the researchers from the economical field value good security practice and use more secure systems for professional communication. High percentage of the biomedical researchers who use insecure e­mail services may mean that they need to be warned of the possible security disadvantages of those kinds of e­mail addresses.