Email Encryption Solutions: Everything You Need To Know

Preserving your anonymity is one of the best ways to protect your privacy online. As online privacy issues such as identity and data theft rise, more people are turning to email encryption solutions. These solutions are a key component of digital security and offer an effective and secure way to keep your personal or company data safe.

Many email encryption products are available on the market today, and selecting the right one can be difficult and time-consuming.

We put together this simple guide to help you understand their role in protecting your private information from prying eyes and cybercriminals and what you should consider when choosing an email encryption service.

We’ll also explore how email encryption can improve your business’s overall security and share ways to optimize it for maximum results.

If you’re concerned about protecting your email security and privacy, read on!

 

Why Should You Use Email Encryption Solutions?

If you want to keep your emails private, encryption is the answer. Encryption technology makes it impossible for a person to access your email data without the correct encryption keys.

For example, if a hacker gets into your account, all they will see are jumbled characters and letters. And if you’re using two-factor authentication, then the intruder won’t even be able to get into your password-protected inbox.

Email encryption gives you full control over who can read your inbound and outbound mails. It also protects you against spam, viruses, and phishing attempts.

In addition, encrypting your email takes very little effort. Once it’s set up correctly, all your communications are automatically encrypted.

 

Who Can Access Your Email?

If you’re not encrypting your email, anyone can access your data, including cybercriminals, government agencies, or even someone with physical access to your hard drive.

But, can they do that without any special software?

Well, the fact is, emails travel through several different servers before they reach their final destination. Although they aren't visible in transit, each server has its own log files that record every email that goes through it.

The messages themselves may never become public knowledge. But those with access to records – like law enforcement agencies – can get information about senders, recipients, and send dates and times.

Law enforcement agencies can easily access emails without email encryption, because internet service providers (ISPs) usually only require very little information before setting up accounts. In many cases, email providers are also legally obligated to hand over customer data without a warrant.

However, you can use technology that allows only authorized parties to read your emails. With advanced techniques like end-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge algorithms running on distributed networks, it's possible to send secure emails that no one can decrypt, except for the intended recipients.

 

What Happens When You Send Email Without Encryption?

Sending unencrypted emails can have many consequences, which may be catastrophic to a business or even lead to criminal penalties.

Emails that are not encrypted can be easily intercepted by any outside entity. When that happens, there’s no telling what could happen to your data. If you’re lucky, someone could just harmlessly read your messages and open your attachments. However, more malicious parties could steal your digital information and, essentially, your identity.

While most people think that hacking attempts only target large corporations, small businesses, and even individual users are just as vulnerable, especially if they don’t apply the appropriate digital security measures.

Unfortunately, such breaches occur more often than you might think. Hundreds of millions of digital records have been stolen from major organizations, including Anthem Health (78 million), Sony Pictures (77 million), and Target Corp (70 million).

 

How Do Email Encryption Solutions Protect Your Data?

Essentially, every time an email passes through an insecure network like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, it can be intercepted and/or viewed by unintended recipients.

Email encryption solutions work by encrypting emails as they’re sent from one user to another. So, if someone else intercepts your message during transmission, that person will be unable to read it without the decryption key.

Different email encryption solutions work in different ways, depending on a user’s needed level of security. For example, major cloud services like Amazon have end-to-end encryption capabilities built into communications tools, which provide more protection against surveillance attempts and sophisticated cybercriminals.

 

What Features Should You Look For In An Email Encryption Service?

Despite its benefits, some business owners can find email encryption overwhelming. To help you make the best choice, we’ve prepared a list of the essential elements your email encryption solutions should offer:

Cloud-Based Services

Cloud-based services will transform your email into an unreadable format and store it in the cloud. Authorized users can transform the data back into a readable format using a key.

In addition, cloud-based services offer security features like 24/7 monitoring and can be accessed by authorized users any time from anywhere in the world. Outsourcing sensitive data storage functions like encryption and file sharing from physical servers in your office to a third-party network will also give you multiple backup options.

Data Loss Prevention Capabilities

This feature provides added protection by scanning documents or emails containing confidential information. In addition, to help avoid data leakage, it alerts users when their message contains sensitive information that could be damaging if it falls into the wrong hands.

Compliance With Security Regulations

As data privacy becomes more of a concern, businesses must contend with more and more regulations to protect sensitive information within the workplace. These include HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act), and Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards.

Failing to comply with these regulations can lead to huge financial repercussions, lost productivity, lawsuits, and negative press coverage.

Ease Of Use

When choosing an email encryption solution for your company, a good user experience is just as important as advanced functionality.

Email encryption vendors that support hosted solutions can improve organizations’ management workflow processes through ease of deployment, greater accessibility, and simplified administration.

With hosted providers, each organization retains full control over its messaging environment. This reduces costs and complexity while providing complete visibility of messaging activities across divisions or branches, improving collaboration.

 

The TitanHQ EncryptTitan Email Encryption Solution

TitanHQ offers high-quality integrated email encryption services through our award-winning Outlook add-in solution, SaaS platform, desktop apps, and API. Our comprehensive EncryptTitan solution secures your messaging environment depending on your available infrastructure and the types of messages that need special protection.

Comprehensive Data Security

EncryptTitan provides secure encryption of your email messages to recipients as well as end-to-end email security from creation to receipt.

EncryptTitan is a component of our broader TitanHQ Managed Security Platform, enabling you to protect all your sensitive data. This includes server backups, source code repositories, financial records, and communications with business partners.

Surveillance-Proof Messaging

With online surveillance becoming more prevalent these days, there are increasing chances of communication between individuals being intercepted. Even an innocuous conversation between two people may be intercepted by others with advanced surveillance technologies. They use these to wiretap mobile phone calls, texts, and web browsing histories.

With EncryptTitan, you can be assured that your emails will be encrypted across all mail environments, including hybrid ones.

Effortless Installation

Installing and using EncryptTitan is simple. It doesn’t require advanced technical skills to encrypt your email data and ensure it’s protected on your team’s devices.

More importantly, you don’t need to install any special software or make any hardware and infrastructure changes. All you need is an Internet connection. That’s it!

Affordable Option

Every business needs to protect its data, but some email encryption solutions can be expensive. EncryptTitan is a reasonably priced yet reliable option that offers both security and ease of use in one package. With our end-to-end encryption technology, you can rest assured that your data is protected wherever it goes.

 

Final Thoughts

Emails have become ingrained in modern everyday life and are integral to business and personal communications. Most times, people don’t think twice before clicking send. However, emails are extremely vulnerable to data privacy breaches that can have resounding consequences. Email encryption solutions aim to provide organizations with a way to store and send sensitive emails privately and safely.

Small businesses often try to save money by using free services such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail. While it’s more affordable, it may not offer the most protection you need. A major security breach in one of these services could directly affect users and leave them vulnerable to identity theft or financial loss.

Email encryption software has become an essential tool for businesses, governments, and individuals looking to protect the privacy of their digital communications. With powerful email encryption solutions, you can send and receive secure emails from any of your devices with ease.

Now, more than ever, keeping your important business data safe is crucial.