| Communicating by email has become second nature | | | | innocent-looking email. |
| for most of us. Only a decade or so ago, it was a | | | | Remember that every email you send is like a |
| strange and new activity that we viewed as a novelty. | | | | postcard. If someone wants to read it, all they need to |
| It is now an indispensable part of our personal and | | | | be able to do is access one of the mail servers that it |
| business lives. Unfortunately, as the use and | | | | will be routed through on its journey, and this is not as |
| acceptance of email has grown, so have the number | | | | difficult as it sounds. Emails can travel around the globe |
| of ways in which it can be used for criminal, or just | | | | even if the destination is across the street. It can be |
| plain evil, purposes. For this reason, we suggest looking | | | | routed through servers in far away countries where |
| into utilizing email security in the form of email | | | | sniffers may be installed to detect and read the email. |
| encryption. | | | | Police and security forces are constantly monitoring |
| Corporations and governments are using encrypted | | | | our email, searching for keywords that might alert |
| email technology because of the sensitive nature of | | | | them to the possibility of terrorist or criminal activity. |
| their communications. Typically, this type of security is | | | | Generally, the content of our emails is pretty benign |
| very expensive and technologically advanced. | | | | and of little value to the bad guys, but occasionally, |
| Certainly, for the average personal user of email, it is | | | | they hit the jackpot and intercept really valuable |
| not practical. More and more, we are seeing this type | | | | information in an email, like a password, account |
| of email encryption being developed in simpler and | | | | number, username or PIN (personal identification |
| much less expensive formats, targeted at the home | | | | number). When you need to communicate such |
| user. But is something like this appropriate for you? | | | | information to someone (which you should really never |
| Let's take a look at the risks of using unsecured email. | | | | do anyways), use the telephone. |
| We all know and receive spam messages on a daily | | | | Email encryption software will actually re-write the |
| basis. For the most part, we employ spam filtering | | | | content of your email in code, making it difficult for the |
| tools to block these messages and they work pretty | | | | email to be read by anyone other than the intended |
| well. We have become trained to see spam as | | | | recipient. There are different types such as symmetric |
| potentially dangerous. It may simply be an annoying ad | | | | key encryption, asymmetric encryption and digital |
| offering us designer watches for $15 or it may contain | | | | signatures. You may already be familiar with a |
| malware, viruses or worse, which is why we are | | | | common form of encryption used on web-based |
| happy that the spam blocker prevents it from entering | | | | HTML pages. This is a secure socket layer (SSL) |
| our inbox at all. | | | | certificate, which is identified by the page address |
| Look at how your spam filter is configured. There | | | | having the prefix https instead of the regular http. |
| usually is a setting to have it permanently remove | | | | Never enter credit card or banking information or |
| spam messages as soon as they are identified. This is | | | | conduct any type of financial transaction on a site that |
| effective, but if a message from a safe sender gets | | | | doesn't start with https! The SSL certificate is a form |
| identified as spam, it will be destroyed along with the | | | | of encryption that the web site uses to scramble the |
| junk. The trick is to label all safe senders as such and | | | | information, protecting it from prying eyes. |
| tell the spam filter that they are OK to receive emails | | | | Email encryption technology is even more |
| from. However, without much sophistication, bad guys | | | | sophisticated than SSL, but as we rely more and more |
| can intercept an email in transit, change the content | | | | on email and criminals become more ingenious and |
| and even the sender, then let it continue its journey to | | | | clever, it may be wise to look into the different options |
| your computer. In this case, the safe sender might | | | | available. In the meantime, practice safe email usage, |
| actually be an email you don't want to open, particularly | | | | use common sense and avoid the headaches that |
| if it contains an attachment. In this case, you can only | | | | many people have experienced by having their |
| hope that your anti-virus software is going to intercept | | | | sensitive information compromised. |
| any threats that might be contained within the | | | | |