Understanding Email Encryption
Recent scandals have shed new light on the fact that protecting emails, sensitive documents, and your personal information on the internet, in both storage and in transit, is of the utmost importance. Not only could you be jeopardizing your own identity, but you could be directly affecting the other affiliated parties, businesses, family members, etc. involved with the message (or document). The solution that’s been used time and again is rather simple — email encryption.
But, what is encryption? And how can it be used to your advantage?
Encryption itself is a complex process involving a computer or program using mathematical formulas that generate a series of characters to cipher (and decipher) emails, documents, messages, and just about anything else you need encrypted on the internet. Encryption is especially used when dealing with sensitive or confidential information that may be harmful if seen by the general public or any third party, but it’s also being used during most online transactions and/or purchases when a lock emblem is visible next to the website’s URL. The encryption tool attached with the website is scrambling your confidential information, such as credit and debit card numbers, address, name, and social security number to prevent anyone else from accessing this information.
You can even download encryption tools and applications for your smartphone. These apps are set to encrypt and scramble all incoming and outgoing text messages, video messages, and internet browsing sessions.
Okay, but why do we use encryption? And what needs to be encrypted?
Identity theft is a major reason that encryption exists for personal use, but for large corporations and businesses operating in industries that have pre-determined compliance requirements, encryption is used to protect clients, employees, customers, and any other information passed through the business to meet compliance standards and to prevent data breaches. If you need an idea of what the consequences of a data breach might be, just think back to the severity of the Sony Pictures breach last year. Not only was Sony Pictures publicly scrutinized and thoroughly examined across every media outlet in the country, but their employees’ and clients’ information were leaked for the public to see — private messages, unreleased screenplays, financial numbers, personal information, so on and so forth.
It’s always best to make sure that your information is protected online, meaning that you only make purchases on secure websites (lock emblem or HTTPs), you access sensitive webpages and make transactions/purchases from your smartphone only on secure WiFi networks, and that you always send your information securely by way of an email encryption software.
For example, if you’re needing to send files that contain social security numbers, patient numbers, order numbers, or any other personal identifiers attached to a document, you need to send encrypted. Normal emails do not need to be encrypted, but always can be, if necessary.
How can I start using encryption?
You can start right away!
Email encryption first existed as a rather complex process that required that both the”sender” and the “recipient” have access to the same email encryption tool. Specific encryption certificates had to be sent out to recipients, from the sender, which acted like keys to unlock the encrypted messages they were receiving. Imagine how convoluted the process became when a sender would send multiple messages to multiple recipients with each message attached to their own different encryption certificates. Fortunately, here at NeoCertified, we’ve bypassed this outdated method.
We’ve made the process much simpler for both the sender and the recipient.
After the sender has logged in to our secure portal, they can compose their message and send it securely to any intended recipient. The recipient will then receive a notification email, which lets them know that a secure message is waiting for them in the NeoCertified secure portal. Upon clicking the supplied secure link in the notification email, the recipient then sets up a password for their own secure account with NeoCertified, which allows them inside the secure portal to read and reply securely to their message. It’s that simple!
