If you’re concerned about your privacy and the security of your email communications, encrypted emails are a good option. They can’t be read unless they’re decrypted, and they can’t be copied.
In addition, most major email services use TLS (Transport Layer Security) in transit to protect your messages from interception. However, some recipients don’t have TLS capabilities.
Encryption
Encrypted email is a security feature that prevents sensitive information from being read by unintended recipients or cybercriminals. It’s also a necessity for businesses that handle confidential details such as employee payslips and contract papers.
Email encryption is a type of cryptography that uses a key pair to encrypt and decrypt messages. Each user’s email address comes with a public key that is stored on a key server along with their name and email. The public key is used to encrypt and decrypt emails, while the private key is stored on the user’s computer.
When you send an email, it’s encrypted using the public key, which creates a scramble that is difficult to decipher. Only the person who has the corresponding private key can open it and read its contents.
Email encryption protocols include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS) and STARTTLS. These protocols are essential for email transmission because they prevent phishing attacks and help secure your email domain from spoofing.
Passwords
Passwords are a vital element of keeping email secure. They can help prevent hackers from stealing sensitive information from your account and accessing other online accounts you may use.
Encryption is another method of protecting your email. This works by scrambling the text of your email, so only you can read it. There are two main types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric.
There are a variety of ways to encrypt your email, but the most secure is to use end-to-end encryption. This means that your email cannot be read by anyone else on the network until it reaches its destination, and only then can it be decrypted.
You can encrypt your emails using tools like Gmail’s ‘Confidential mode’ and Microsoft Outlook’s ‘Password Protected’ option. You can also encrypt your attachments before sending them using 7-Zip or WinRAR and Microsoft Office’s built-in encryption feature.
Recipients
Email has revolutionized communication at the workplace, allowing employees to categorize, block content/senders and even send automatic responses. However, email can be an insecure way to communicate as it travels across multiple machines and traverses the Internet many times before a message reaches its final destination.
In order to protect sensitive information sent via email, businesses must ensure that emails are encrypted and only the intended recipients can read them. This ensures compliance with data protection acts such as GDPR and avoids costly penalties.
To use end-to-end encryption, both the sender and recipient generate public and private keys. The sender uses their public key to encrypt the message and the recipient uses their private key to decrypt it.
Storage
Encrypted email is often stored in a variety of ways. This includes cloud storage, local drive, or even a combination of the two.
The storage of your email is an important consideration. Not only can it protect you from the bad guys, but it also makes your email a lot more useful to you.
Typically, storage devices are either magnetic, optical, or flash in nature. These can range from small, portable devices like microSD cards to large, hard drives and even virtual disks that reside on the cloud or in a data center.
A good sized storage device can hold hundreds of gigabytes, if not thousands. This is a massive amount of data, and it’s usually measured in bits (the smallest unit of measurement). There are several different technologies and standards that allow this to happen.
