Encryption is an important cybersecurity feature that ensures your communication’s privacy, keeping users’ information safe from bad actors. Recently, with hacking events, such as the Salt Typhoon telecom attack, occurring more frequently, people are beginning to wonder how to keep their messages safe from prying eyes, including emails.
Encryption is the process of converting a readable message, called plaintext, into unreadable gibberish, called ciphertext. The ciphertext can only be translated back into plaintext through a cryptographic key that both parties have access to. Therefore, when your emails are properly encrypted, even if your information is revealed in a data breach, they remain indecipherable to hackers or outside parties that don’t have access to the key.
Most email services, such as Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and Yahoo, provide some form of encryption, but not all encryption tools are created equally. For instance, standard email encryption scrambles the messages as they are transported from server to server, or from one person’s outbox to a recipient’s inbox. This is called Transport Layer Security (TLS).
Once the message arrives at its intended server, however, the encryption ends. That means you are able to read it, but so is your email provider and, potentially, a bad actor. To keep the message secure, it requires an additional layer of encryption. This can be done through Secure Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME) or through Pretty Good Privacy/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (PGP/MIME). Both of these extensions are forms of end-to-end encryption (E2EE).
While most email already comes with the standard TLS encryption, you’ll need to take additional steps to activate S/MIME or PGP/MIME. How this work varies by your email provider. You can find guides for setting up S/MIME for two of the major email providers below:
Additionally, you could use an email provider with automatic E2EE included or an add-on encryption service. Proton Mail is a very popular option for users looking for an email provider that includes E2EE as its baseline.
For businesses, encrypting your email communications is imperative for keeping important information secure. Since ample amounts of proprietary company correspondence, as well as private employee information, are shared via email it can become an easy target for bad actors. But how do you ensure an entire company’s worth of employee emails is secure?
One of the essential aspects of encryption is that both parties have the appropriate “key.” If the recipient doesn’t, the message will look like gibberish in its cryptographic form. To get around this, they would need to use a third-party email client to support the ability to read encrypted messages and import any certificates or decryption keys that would restore the message to its plaintext form.
This wouldn’t pose a problem for internal messaging in your office, since your IT department would ensure that everyone has the correct keys for either an S/MIME or PGP/MIME setup, but it could get complicated for those outside of your company to receive encrypted messages. Beyond rudimentary privacy, being able to encrypt external messages and attachments is very important for sending sensitive documents or information to clients or business partners, such as contracts, invoices, payment authorizations, etc. So how do you ensure that you can use encryption for emails and documents both internally and externally?
There are several third-party solutions such as sending password protected documents (with passwords shared through another form of encrypted messaging) or services that create special links to allow recipients access, such as Microsoft Purview Message Encryption. It depends on your and their email provider. At KAPCOM we can point you in the right direction.
At KAPCOM, we know email is an essential bedrock of a thriving company. It’s a staple of any business and that’s why we offer several services to ensure yours is running effectively and safely. Our services range from setting up corporate email networks to ensuring your setup is properly encrypted so you can send important and private data securely and confidently.
Book a free consultation to get started today to find out more about how we can help your business streamline its email and elevate your technology to new peaks!
