According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project survey from May 2010, email remains the most popular activity online and 94% of U.S. Internet users have gone online and sent or read email. Although email is an easy and efficient way to communicate with others, many people do not realize that standard email messages are often transmitted in plain text over the internet without any form of encryption and is an inherently an insecure medium. As a result, anyone can intercept the emails and easily access its contents, including any attachments.
Perhaps even more alarming is copies of your messages are typically stored unencrypted on your computer, your company's or host's mail server, each recipient's mail server, and each recipient's computer. While transmitting your message normally takes a fraction of a second, once your message is stored it normally sticks around for years. This provides multiple opportunities for unauthorized access to your email messages and raises legitimate privacy concerns. With the data security risks and potential costs of data attacks, it makes sense for small businesses and individuals to protect sensitive data when sending emails.
Email security has been a hot topic in recent months, especially with reports of well-known companies accidentally exposing private information of their customers in unencrypted e-mails. Since the bulk of business transactions and communications is performed via e-mail, many of the high-cost security incidents occur when insiders send confidential data outside the company without properly securing the data. This includes emails containing personal data, financial information, legal information, trade secrets, or personally identifiable information such as health information, social security numbers, and other sensitive material. Many large corporations use expensive, complex, management intensive solutions such as public key cryptography to secure their sensitive emails.
For small businesses and individuals, e-mail encryption is the most practical and affordable. A good email encryption solution will use powerful cryptography techniques to ensure your messages are both stored and transmitted securely, and that only you and your recipients have the capability to decrypt your message data. Remember, email is typically stored and transmitted in plain-text. Moreover, anytime you click the send button copies of your message are generally stored on your computer, your mail server, each of your recipients' mail servers, and each of your recipients' computers. That gives unauthorized users a lot of opportunities to access your data. Therefore, making sure a message that contains sensitive information can only be accessed by your recipients is the only smart way to go and email encryption is the way to go.
Than Nguyen is an Internet consultant specializing in Internet Technology and helping businesses implement strategies and tools to increase productivity and profitability. Send Secure emails for free at https://www.sendinc.com/
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