In the wake of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s email server, it may be time to explore whether transmitting trade secrets via email—even internally—has become too risky.

Email hacks have become commonplace. It is a virtual certainty that your company has at least been targeted by some sort of hacking attempt. For every high-profile hack, like Sony, Ashley Madison, or the DNC, there are thousands of less-visible companies who also suffered data breaches, often involving emails.

The sad truth is that regardless of protection efforts, no company can keep its emails and centrally stored electronic documents 100% safe. Thus, you need to ask: is it time for my company to ban transmittal of trade-secrets via email?

A wholesale ban on email transmission is not always going to be feasible. But for certain types of trade secrets—particularly ones used only by a small number of employees—this could be workable. For example, I wrote recently about trade-secrets relating to design schematics used in 3D printing. Those types of schematics could potentially be stored offline.

These issues are highly unique to each company. You should speak with an attorney who specializes in trade-secret issues to figure out whether your company could benefit from taking trade-secrets offline.