This is to notify you that from November 1, 2022, all Astellas group companies will discontinue the use of emails with password-protected ZIP file attachments. From this date on, if you send an email with a password-protected ZIP file attachment, the email (both body and attachment) will be blocked and will not be delivered to the recipient. Please also note that an error mail notifying sender of the transmission failure will not be sent.
For details regarding alternatives for exchanging sensitive data with Astellas, please contact your intended recipient.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation regarding our information security measures.
[BACKGROUND]
Previously, the method of attaching a password-protected ZIP file to an email has been widely used as a measure of security when sending and receiving emails.
However, because it is difficult to detect ZIP-encrypted malware (computer virus) with virus scanning tools, this security problem has come to be abused as an infection tactic by malware such as EMOTET. Taking this situation into account, we have decided to discontinue the exchange of password-protected ZIP files via emails as a new security measure.