Worried that the whole world might read your emails? Do not panic. Most messaging software offers different methods to encrypt its messages. This is enough to respond to hackers and other identity thieves. This guide will tell you how to encrypt your emails..
How email encryption works
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson sent the first e-mail. This invention marked the beginning of a new era of communication. At that time, the security and confidentiality of exchanges was not a priority.
With the development of online crime and cyber attacks, digital security has gradually gained in importance. Today, email address providers use secure connections (HTTPS). But that's not enough to fully protect your messages..
Many individuals but also businesses use email to share sensitive data. This makes our daily lives easier, but the threats are real. The encryption of e-mails remains the only way to guarantee the confidentiality of exchanges.
Encryption consists of recovering all the data of your message and then passing them through a mill (encryption algorithm). The content of the email is then completely scrambled in a puzzle style. Only the owner of the key can decrypt it..
The hacker will still be able to intercept your message. But unlike a regular email, the message content is unreadable. The e-mail can only be decrypted by the private key of the recipient of the message which is in a protected place on his computer.
There are currently different email encryption protocols. We thus find S / MIME, PGP or TLS. The first offers the advantage of being compatible with most email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail or Thunderbird. Discover in this tutorial how to encrypt your emails with the Tutanota application for Android.
Encrypt emails with Outlook
Do we still have to present Outlook? Microsoft's messaging software enjoys significant notoriety, particularly among businesses. However, e-mail remains a somewhat old messaging technology. Remember that it was invented over fifty years ago.
Unlike WhatsApp or Signal which benefit from end-to-end encryption, the content of emails remains in plain text readable by all. To put it simply, the level of confidentiality of the email is equivalent to that of a postcard. That is to say, how easy it is for a hacker to access the contents of an email.
