Comments for Just how secure is email, anyway?

Comment from John on 2009-09-22

2009-09-23T04:32:15Z

E-mail is easy to intercept even on wired networks. Ever hear of ARP Cache Poisoning, DNS spoofing, or ICMP redirect attacks?

All of the above can be used to intercept any type of unencrypted communication on a wired network.

Even if you trust people on your network, a compromised server on the recipients mail server network could be used to intercept email.

Being paranoid about sending private data via email is a *good* thing and is not just for the people who wear tin foil hats.

There are many attacks other than sniffing too.

Do you trust that your recipient has a secure password on their email account, or that their computer is virus free?

Twitter learned this one the hard way, see: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Social-Engineering-Used-to-Compromise-Twitter-117172.shtml

Sorry Leo, but you are dead wrong. I'd strongly recommend that you retract this article. It is really dangerous to tell people that it is O.K. to send private data via e-mail.

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Comment from Bryan on 2009-05-07

2009-05-07T16:08:19Z

Communicating through email is almost never safe. Unless you are using encryption (most do not) your data may be intercepted. Probalby not by some big time hacker, but more likely a wanna be hacker, 13 year old so called "script kid" who runs scripts that were prewritten to do such things. If you don't want to go through the hassel of encrypting your email you can use a service which handles the messaging aspect for you such as www. PrivateInformationExchange.com.

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A comment on: Just how secure is email, anyway?

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Comment from Tim on 2008-09-29

2008-09-29T16:13:42Z

Are there any firm, researched statistics about this? To be meaningful, if would have to include incidents of hacking (say) per million, sub-divided by method of hacking.

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Comment from Frank Hughes on 2008-09-17

2008-09-17T18:10:58Z

Yes, solutions can be expensive, but what is the cost when one of your associates in human resources sends your 15,000 employees' SSN's to the wrong address and it gets picked up by the media? Hosted off-site solution work, but add more critical components that must be safeguarded. If the hosting company has a leak, your customers still ascribe the blame to you.

Consider options surround the choice to encrypt and whether to use a hosted solution very cautiously.

Frank
Strategic Data Management

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Comment from monty on 2008-08-25

2008-08-25T21:45:32Z

With all the hype now a days with hackers and systems being sabotaged and or comprimised i too was concerned with my companies safety and security when it comes to email information going over the airwaves. I did a lot of research into getting our own system and i found out pretty quickly that it can get very expensive and up into the 40-50k range to secure your emails with different sofisticated systems out there.Well i did my job and did more research i found a company that specializes in this market and saved thousands of dollars. the company is called www.global-datasolutions.com and we now have a pretty sofisticated system in place through them, using desktop PGP and we are also using the blackberry devices through them as well equipped with PGP.Its a pay as you go service and it includes unlimited world wide roaming/24-7 tech support/the blackberry device of your choice and best of all they customized the plans according to our own specific needs.
if you need security go and check them out you will save tons of money.

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A comment on: Just how secure is email, anyway?

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Comment from Leo on 2008-05-13

2008-05-13T20:00:42Z

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I don't think so.

Leo

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A comment on: Just how secure is email, anyway?

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Comment from Roberto on 2008-05-12

2008-05-12T21:53:05Z

Does exchange server encrypt emails at the form the LAN to the WAN?

Thanks

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A comment on: Just how secure is email, anyway?

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Comment from Rick on 2008-02-21

2008-02-21T20:19:41Z

There are email services available that use encrypted links by default. A list of providers and further discussion can be found at novo-ordo.com. While it is true, few people are targeted, I suspect the environment is becoming more hostile for the average Joe.

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A comment on: Just how secure is email, anyway?

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Comment from Finn61 on 2007-08-07

2007-08-08T06:00:23Z

I disagree with the tone of this response. Comparing email to online purchases is misleading. Almost all reputable online retailers will use encrypted HTTP to perform transactions over the web (usually your browser will notify you of this by displaying a padlock or similar icon when browsing a secure page). On the other hand email by default, is transmitted as plain text. Like most data on the internet it also passes through many networks and servers on the way from source to destination. It would be trivial for any one of these intermederies to automatically take a copy of all emails that contained credit card numbers. The fact that 99% of emails are boring is meaningless to a program searching for key words. As such I would advise your readers to always think before sending sensitive or financial information via email and follow your practice of encrypted attachments when required.

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A comment on: Just how secure is email, anyway?

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