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Why You Need the Most Secure Email and How to Get It

Website Security

Sometimes, thinking that you need to consider email security can leave you feeling like you’re paranoid. Surely you’re not important enough for hackers to consider, right? Who would want to be reading your emails?

Surely you’re not important enough for hackers to consider, right? Who would want to be reading your emails?

Unfortunately, everyone is a potential target. The good news is that you can easily take steps to get the most secure email possible.

Securing your email is an important step to make sure that all of your information is protected, not just your most sensitive data. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.

Read on to learn more about how you can protect yourself and your information.

Why You Need The Most Secure Email

The biggest question that most people ask themselves is why they need to bother with adding all these extra steps to their routine. Only the person you’re sending the email to should be reading it anyway, right?

Once you send an unencrypted email, though, you have no power over what happens to it after that. Even if you trust the recipient not to forward it to anyone else, it’s still pretty easy for a hacker to intercept.

Think of an unencrypted email as having a conversation in a crowded place. You’re only speaking to one person, but anyone in the vicinity could decide to eavesdrop on your conversation.

Once you encrypt your email, though, it’s like you’ve taken your conversation behind soundproofed walls.

You wouldn’t send sensitive information on the back of a postcard. So don’t send it in an unsecured email.

Anyone Can Be Hacked

Before you think that this still doesn’t apply to you, think about how many spam messages you get. How many times has a friend’s email been hacked to send you malware? What about their social media profile?

These are normal people, but they’re vulnerable targets for Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, and other personal information.

For example, if you were to send an email to CreditRepairCompanies.com with your credit card number, the last thing you’d want is for that information to fall into the wrong hands. Someone could steal your identity and go on a shopping spree before you had a chance to blink.

What you send online is your business, not anyone else’s. Encryption is the best way right now to get the most secure email.

It’s even more important for businesses, who need to protect their financial information, product information, and their employees’ personal information. Traditional email is never actually deleted from unsecured servers, which means business owners need to go to greater lengths to make sure that their information is secured.

Encryption sounds complicated, but it’s easier than you’d think. There are a few options that are available to even the most technologically challenged. Keep reading to find out how you can secure your email communications.

How To Secure Your Email

You don’t have to pay a ton of money to make sure you have the most secure email. You don’t even have to be on the same technological level as the hackers trying to steal your information.

There are a lot of open-source options out there. Here are some of the best ways to protect your emails from falling into the wrong digital hands.

Create A Personal Signature

In olden times, people sealed letters with wax and a family crest. That way, everyone knew exactly who had sent them important information — and they knew that the letter hadn’t been opened.

It helped the sender make sure that no one but the intended recipient would open the message without evidence of tampering, and the recipient could be sure that an imposter wasn’t sending them information.

Creating a digital signature is kind of like the twenty-first-century version of sealing your mail.

Using a personal email certificate lets you sign your emails so that family, friends, and colleagues know that the message is really coming from you. You can also encrypt your email message if you want to.

This also helps cut down on any spam being sent in your name. If a message arrives without your digital signature, the person will know it’s fake and can delete it.

Use Public Key Infrastructure

Public Key Infrastructure, or PKI, is just a fancy way of saying encrypt your emails. You have a public key, which you can send to anyone receiving your emails, and a private key, which only you should know.

If someone wants to send an email for your eyes only, they’d encrypt it using your public key. You’d use your private key to unlock the message, so even if someone sits down at your personal computer to read your messages, they still wouldn’t be able to.

When you send a message, you use a digital signature like the one mentioned above to verify that it came from you.

It’s important to note that you should encrypt all of your messages if you choose this route — otherwise, the one message that you encrypt will look suspicious to anyone who may be monitoring your online activity.

Use A Different Email Server

If you’re willing to leave services like Gmail and Outlook behind, you can start over again with a whole new email server. There are a few options out there that are geared specifically towards people who like their privacy. This is the most comprehensive way to get the most secure email.

You usually have to pay for the hosting services, but it’s such a small number that it’s well worth it in the long run.

Email servers with extra security will keep all of your messages encrypted at all times. You can even set messages to self-destruct after a certain period of time to make absolutely sure that it can’t be read by anyone suspicious.

Even if you’re emailing someone who isn’t on the server, it will still encrypt your message. Don’t forget to set up a DMARC record for enhanced security.

Start Monitoring For Hacker Attacks Today

Of course, one of the best ways to protect yourself from cyber attacks is to stop them before they happen. At SiteUpTime, we can help protect your website from malicious hackers.

We’ll let you know by phone, email, or text when a problem arises. Get in touch today to find out how to set up your service.