When you load up your inbox from an end-to-end encrypted email service, it first has to receive a private key that's unique to your account-and essentially uncrackable-before it de-scrambles the encrypted content. That requires users to trust that these organizations won't use their encryption keys to read your email-or that the keys won't fall into the hands of hackers.Įnd-to-end encryption puts control in the hands of the user. On the other side, it can be plainly read. Modern encryption does such a good job that it would take a million computers working for sixteen million years to crack, but non-security focused services like Gmail and Hotmail only encrypt the data as it travels from your computer to their servers. The same goes for email data: Sending an email over an encrypted network means scrambling the plain text content of the email so it's impossible to read without what's called an encryption key, which functions like a password. Almost all websites you visit regularly will have SSL enabled to protect users against getting their passwords or form input stolen by someone 'tapping the line.'

SSL provides a way for your computer to guarantee that data it sends to and receives from an SSL-enabled server is encrypted. Any website with https in its URL is using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to keep data you send secure as it travels from your computer to the website's server. To understand end-to-end encryption, you first need to understand encryption.Įncryption is a way to obscure data. On the other hand, end-to-end encryption can help both individuals and businesses keep their information secret: Unencrypted emails were to blame for at least four major breaches of the past few years, leaking millions of emails and causing millions of dollars of avoidable damage.īelow are the features you'll often find as part of secure email, along with thoughts on why they may-or may not-matter to you. Some of the biggest differentiators between security-focused and regular email are pertinent if you're a large organization or enemy of the state, but could be seen as overkill by everyday users.įor example, server location might only be pertinent if you're an activist who can reasonably expect their communications to be subpoenaed by the government. What's wrong with those services? Are they not secure? Well, it depends on your threat model and adversary. You probably already use Gmail or Outlook. Security Features to Look for in an Email Service In this piece, we'll talk about what to look for in a secure email service, and then we'll present what we found to be the seven most secure services.

Luckily for its four billion users, developers and security researchers are consistently coming up with ways to improve on this old technology for it to be viable and safe in the age of rapid and intelligent attacks. Email is ancient technology compared to modern team communication tools, and it has technical limitations that make its age a real barrier to security.

Secure mailbox