It’s estimated that this year there are roughly 347 billion emails being sent each and every day. While plenty of those are newsletters and coupons for some websites you may have visited once, many of them are important business dealings with important (and delicate) information. As technology has become more and more ingrained in how we do business, it’s no secret that the security around that technology has also grown in importance.  

So, the question is, how secure is email? And are there certain things you should be doing to make it safer for your information?

 

How Emails Are Generally Compromised

When looking at email security, there are three primary ways an email might be compromised.

  1. The sender’s device. Some email clients encrypt the email that’s stored on your device but most don’t. That means any program with access to your computer or smartphone can read email content and download attachments. So, be careful of what you download and give access to.
  2. The networks and servers it travels across. Connections between you and your email service provider, ISP (Internet Service Provider), and other networks (e.g. Apple) can be exploited. This also includes any connections to the recipient’s network. All of these connections can be used to intercept and steal information.
  3. The recipient’s device. Anyone with access to the recipient’s device can access email content. Hackers may go after the receiver’s device since it can be easier to infiltrate and secretly access sensitive data. Even after documents have been successfully delivered, document storage becomes another element of security to consider.

 

What is Email Encryption?

The Basics

To understand email security, it’s important to have some understanding of what email encryption is. Simply put, it’s an authentication process that helps ensure your emails are not being accessed by unintended third parties. It essentially scrambles all the information into an unreadable form as it’s in transit, and then reassembles itself for the targeted recipient.

The problem is, as previously mentioned, most popular email services don’t actually offer end-to-end encryption (by default, at least), meaning most emails aren’t fully protected.

 

End-to-End Encryption: The Best For Email Security

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is ultimately what you’re looking for if you’re after the most secure email transfers. Unlike standard email security, E2EE maintains data encryption until it reaches its destination. In other words, data is encrypted from your end and decrypted only when it reaches the intended recipient. That means neither the servers the email travels across nor unauthorized parties can access the information.

End-to-end encryption is the most secure way to communicate privately. That’s why Caplinked virtual data rooms are protected with end-to-end encryption, ensuring your information is safe from prying eyes.

 

How to Encrypt Your Emails

While many email services aren’t encrypted by default, technological advances have made encryption more accessible than ever in recent years. There are even ways to send encrypted emails without third-party encryption software.

 

How to Encrypt Emails in Gmail

Gmail has recently introduced E2EE, but requires both the sender and recipient to have it turned on. Here are all the steps you need to enable E2EE in Gmail.

 

  1. Enable Hosted S/MIME. To do this, you’ll want to follow Google’s step-by-step guide which you can access through the link by clicking here.
  2. Compose your email like usual in Gmail.
  3. Click on the lock icon that should appear to the right of the desired recipient.
  4. Select “view details” in order to alter the encryption level or settings.

 

How to Encrypt Emails in Outlook

While it’s slightly less straightforward than Google, newer versions of Microsoft Outlook now allow you to enable E2EE as well.

 

  1. Add a certificate to the Keychain on your computer. Follow Microsoft’s guide for that by clicking here.
  2. Open a new email message composition in Outlook.
  3. Click File and then Properties.
  4. Click Security Settings.
  5. Select the “Encrypt message contents and attachments” check box.
  6. Compose your email and hit send.

 

Alternatively, you can encrypt all outgoing messages in Outlook. To do that follow these steps:

 

  1. Go to the File tab.
  2. Click Options then Trust Center and then Trust Center Settings.
  3. Go to the Email Security tab.
  4. Under Encrypt email select the “Encrypt contents and attachments for outgoing messages” check box. 

 

How to Encrypt Emails on iOS

Apple takes security seriously, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise your iOS devices support E2EE. Again, both the sender and the recipient will have to enable encryption on their devices. To utilize this function, follow these steps on your iOS device:

 

  1. Go to advanced settings.
  2. Find “S/MIME” and switch it on.
  3. Find “Encrypt by Default” and switch it to yes.
  4. Compose an email.
  5. Click on the lock icon that should appear next to the recipient’s name. A closed lock icon means it is now encrypted.

 

Which Email Service Providers are the Least Secure?

The answer to that is actually pretty simple — any email service provider that doesn’t offer E2EE isn’t secure. That means your best options will either be learning how to enable E2EE for the providers that even offer that (like Google and Outlook), or switching to an email service provider that is a designated email encryption service (like ProtonMail).

 

The Future of Email

Until some crazy new technology is discovered, email isn’t going anywhere. Enterprises, government agencies, and other organizations rely on email for both internal and external communication. If you’re sending any important information in an email, you’ll need to make sure your email is secure.

That means encrypting your emails is a must, as it’s the best way to fully secure email communications and prevent access by unauthorized parties. You can even go for double protection and learn how to lock documents like PDFs and zip files.

While sending information using encryption is super important. Storing that information is equally as important. That’s where CapLinked can help, by providing a modern and secure VDR service for all of your important information.

 

Cyrus Grant is a writer from Southern California with a background in content marketing, dispute resolution, law, and politics. When he isn’t writing he can be found deep-diving into the latest technology trends or spending time at the beach.