In a world where letters have become obsolete, emails are the preferred form of formal communication. Moreover, having an email id is one of the essential requisites of doing anything online, whether creating a social media account, signing up on websites or shopping online.

According to Statista, people sent approximately 306.4 billion emails in 2020, and experts predict this number will rise significantly in the coming years. Given the sheer volume of emails that get sent every day, it’s pretty apparent that this is the most effective form of communication, especially for businesses.

What Is An Encrypted Email?

In school, you must have read about Egyptian hieroglyphics. The pictorial script might seem gibberish at first glance. However, archaeologists and researchers spent a long time digging into various Egyptian hieroglyphics and finally deciphered the meaning behind the strange scriptures.

Encryption is practically the same thing.

Email encryption is the process by which you can encrypt or disguise the contents of your email to avoid third parties accessing any sensitive information in them.

The Importance Of Email Encryption

While emails have always been the primary method of communication with businesses and organisations, there is always a risk of hackers collecting sensitive information from your emails. Unfortunately, Internet security is still developing, and there’s yet to be a solution that prevents third parties from stealing data.

As a result, email encryption provides an additional layer of security that disguises your content in the mails. In an age where you use mails to apply to colleges, make doctor appointments, apply for jobs, and do many other official works, emails are filled with important personal information. For example, your bank details, legal documents, tax details and contracts are always under the threat of malicious hackers.

Unfortunately, there’s no handy tool like the Oxford referencing generator that can keep all this information secure. However, protecting these is your responsibility, and encryption is one of the easiest ways to ensure sensitive data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

5 Reasons Why You Should Consider Email Encryption

Using unencrypted emails is like leaving the front door of your house open for any robber. These days, even if you want to hire any Zara case study help online, you’d need to mail in your payment details which would contain your bank information. Likewise, something as simple as a job application would include your personal contact information, and other vital information hackers can misuse. So, let’s dive deeper into why you should seriously consider encrypting your emails henceforth.

1. Protects your privacy

When sending large numbers of emails every day, giant corporations are always at the risk of malicious third-party hackers breaching the privacy of the email contents. As data harvesting has become a lucrative offer, these hacks won’t care if you’re a person looking for Wells Fargo case study help or a CEO of a multi-million-dollar corporation about to confirm a business deal. All they care about is stealing information and selling it in the market.

2. Is a cost-effective option

Encrypting emails might seem like a costly affair, but it’s not in reality. If the email service you use already has encryption built into its servers, you won’t have to make any additional purchases for encryption purposes. So, it’s best to use encrypted email services and save up the extra costs in the future.

3. Increases efficiency

If the emails you type are already encrypted in the email servicer, you won’t have to bother going through additional programs to secure the email. Usually, if the email service provider does not offer encryption services, you’d have to go out of your way to follow multiple steps to ensure the files you attach are protected. However, when the responsibility falls on the service provider, you can use your emails to send sensitive information without worrying about anything.

4. Helps you avoid business risks

Businesses are always in constant competition to one-up the other. As a result, there is always the threat of rival companies gaining access to sensitive information and using it as leverage against your business. Therefore, to avoid such risky situations, it is always best to invest in encrypted emails for added reassurance.

5. Prevents identify theft

If hackers gain access to your email id and password, they’d be able to adapt your identity and send fraudulent emails on your behalf. This can jeopardise business relationships and cause irreparable damage to your reputation. Hence, it is crucial that you use email encryption to avoid such issues.

What Are The Types Of Email Encryption?

In general, there are two significant types of email encryption:

• Encrypting and email in transit (TLS)
• End-to-end email encryption

Before the use of TLS, cybercriminals were able to read emails in transit. This compromised the security of emails significantly and stirred cyber security to develop the Transport Layer Security Encryption. Organisations like Microsoft and Google use TLS to secure the mails while moving from sender to recipient.

However, the downside to TLS is that it only provides security while the emails are in transit, that is, as soon as the sender hits send and before it reaches the recipient’s mail inbox. However, if cybercriminals can hack into the recipient’s mails through phishing, they’d be able to gain access to all emails.

For this reason, many organisations prefer end-to-end encryption for emails. In this case, the sender encrypts the emails, and only the recipient can decrypt them on their device. This kind of encryption ensures that no one, including email servers, would be able to read the emails at any state of their delivery.

How Can You Encrypt An Email?

Now that you’re aware of the importance of email encryption, let’s see how you can secure your emails from the prying eyes of cybercriminals in just a few steps:

1. Using S/MIME encryption on Microsoft Outlook

• Ensure both the recipient and sender’s mail application supports S/MIME
• Go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings
• Select Email Security
• Under Encrypted email, choose Settings
• Go to Certificates and Algorithms> select Choose>S/MIME certificate
• Click OK

2. Using encryption on Google

• Compose your mail
• Add recipients to the “To” section
• The lock screen appearing next to the “To” section shows the level of encryption that your message’s recipients support
• Click on the lock >View details to change any encryption settings

In an age where malicious cybercriminals can access your private information readily, it is up to you to protect your emails from such threats. Thus, email encryption is the safest way to ensure your communication remains secure across all networks.

Summing it up,

As emails become the most frequent method of communication worldwide, it is crucial to ensure that the information you send through emails doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. In this regard, email encryption offers the added protection you need to keep your sensitive data safe from malicious third-party hackers. Large corporations, small businesses and private individuals – these cybercriminals do not discriminate when trying to steal your information. So, you must go over the email encryption ABCs and secure your method of communication correctly.