what is email encryption?
Email is the number one business communication tool. businesses and professionals use it every day.
Hackers always target emails. because if they can hack your email. they will get access to all your accounts like your bank account, social media, and your accounts at work.
When you send an email hackers can intercept it on the internet, even worse they can read it.
For this reason. you should always send encrypted emails to protect yourself from them.
So what is email encryption? And why you should encrypt your emails?.
In this blog post, we will answer those questions, more.
What you'll learn:
- what is email encryption?
- Why you should encrypt your emails?
- what is end-to-end encryption?
- How does end-to-end encryption work?
- What is PGP?
- What is GNU Privacy Guard?
- Email encryption gmail.
- Email encryption outlook.
So if you’re ready to go all in with email encryption, this post is for you.
Let’s dive right in.
Hackers can intercept your emails when you send them over the internet, because they can listen to the communications that happen over the network.
If someone hacks your email account he can read all your emails. which means he will know a lot of information about you. and your companies, and then he can use it.
Companies use email as their primary way of communication. they send their most important documents by email.
In 2020 people have sent over 306.4 billion emails each day.
So how to protect your emails from hackers?
Email encryption allows you to protect yourself from hackers. you can encrypt your emails before sending them, so only you and the recipient can read them.
When you send an encrypted email, if a hacker intercepts it he can’t read it.
What if he hacks your email account?
He can’t read them too, because he will find only the encrypted version of your emails.
What if a hacker breaks into your email server? He can’t read your emails either.
When you send encrypted emails no one can read them, there are only two who can read them: you and the recipient.
This type of encryption is called end-to-end encryption.
End-to-end encryption:
End-to-end encryption means that only you and the recipient can read the email. when you use it, you encrypt the email and the recipient decrypts it.
If a hacker gets the encrypted email he can not decrypt it. even if he tries to decrypt it will take him years and years, and a powerful server or even supercomputer to do it.
How does end-to-end encryption work?
It uses public keys to encrypt the email. the sender encrypts messages using the recipient’s public key. the recipient decrypts the message using his private key.
If you want to send an encrypted email to your friend. first need to get its public key, because you will use it to encrypt the email, and then send it.
When your friend gets your encrypted email, he will use his private key to decrypt it, and then read it.
There are two methods for implementing end-to-end encryption. the first is PGP and the second S/MIME.
You can use PGP, and similar applications, if you want to send encrypted emails.
What is PGP?
PGP is software used for encrypting and decrypting emails. it was invented in 1991. it uses both public-key cryptography and symmetric cryptography.
PGP isn't free software to use, but there is other free software that you can use to encrypt your emails like GPG.
What is GNU Privacy Guard?
It is software used to encrypt and decrypt emails, you can use it for free because it’s open source software.