Key Benefits You Can Expect From Email Encryption

 

Here are some of the key benefits of encrypting your emails as part of your overall email security strategy.

 

1. Prevent Third Parties Reading Your Email

When emails are unencrypted, they can easily be read in transit by anyone who intercepts them. By encrypting your email, only the sender (you) and the recipient can read the contents of the email. This makes it safer to send sensitive information via email.

2. Protect Sensitive Information

Credit card numbers, names, addresses, health information, gender, sexuality. All these pieces of sensitive information could be exposed if they are sent in a an email which is compromised. By encrypting your email you keep this information safe. Remember that if you are a business, you have a duty of care to both your customers and your employees to not reveal personal information about them. Having robust email security is an important factor in this.1:02

3. Prevent Email Being Altered

If an email can be intercepted, it can also be altered. By encrypting your email, you prevent a third-party from changing the contents of the email as it travels between your outbox and the recipient’s inbox. Otherwise, for example, an email requesting payment could be intercepted, and the bank details changed, leading a customer to send funds to the wrong account.

4. Prevent Identity Theft

Sensitive personal information in an email can be used for identity theft by hackers. By encrypting your email, you prevent sensitive information from leaking.

5. Send Email Safely Over Public WiFi

If you are using public WiFi hotspots, like those at a café or an airport, or any WiFi network that you do not administrate yourself, you should always assume that all your browsing activity and any information that you send or receive is visible to the network admin. This includes any emails your send or receive. Encrypting your email will protect your communication while on public WiFi. To protect your browsing, you should use a VPN.

Hopefully this has given you a good overview of email security and the benefits of encrypting your email. Mimecast and Barracuda are both good solutions for email encryption.