How Encrypted Email Can Protect Your Privacy

The fact is: virtual criminals try to mine personal information anywhere they can get it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a seemingly mundane birthday email you received from a friend—they can use information like that to create false accounts and steal from you.

That’s where encrypted email comes in to play!

What is encrypted email? Encrypted email protects your information by putting it into code that requires some form of authentication or decryption by the receiver before it can be opened. The encryption code will often be a random combination of numbers, letters, and symbols that look like a jumbled mess to a human. Encryption and decryption programs are required to make sense of this code. To put it plainly, an encrypted email is one that’s been converted into random characters that require an algorithmic key to decipher.

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Why do I need to encrypt my emails? Before email, we often sent private information through the mail without a second thought. However, the digital age has changed how we send and receive information because it can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Criminals who know what they’re doing can access your emails from across the globe. For this reason, we have to be more cautious with information transmission. In fact, there were more than 52 million data breaches in the second quarter of 2022 alone. Encrypting your emails is one way to combat cybercriminals and prevent them from stealing sensitive information.

You might feel that encryption is a senseless process because anybody can use a decryption program to read or edit the content of an email. However, each email client has an encryption algorithm built into it that creates encrypted code that doesn’t work with a generic decryption program. So, if each email domain has its own encryption algorithm, why isn’t an encrypted email from a different domain coming through as a mess of random characters? The sender’s email client will send a decryption key with the email that can be opened automatically after it’s been verified through certification authority or the user has entered a passkey that’s been specifically created for that message.

How do you encrypt an email? Encrypting an email isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds like it might be. Your email client often offers two types of encryption to help prevent prying eyes from gaining access to the message and limit the number of people the email can go to. If you’re sending sensitive information to a friend or business, you can often find an encryption option in your Options tab on your Toolbar. Once you’ve chosen to encrypt the email, you can choose specific permissions and limitations. You can either give permission only to the recipient to open the email—or prevent forwarding. Both options will create a safe message transmission that isn’t as likely to be opened by someone trying to steal sensitive information.

Do I need to encrypt all of my emails? In short, no, it’s not necessary to encrypt every email you send. Only emails with sensitive information like a credit card number, social security number, or proprietary information need encryption. For example, if you’re sending an email to an old friend to catch up, you don’t need to worry about encrypting the message. However, if you include your child’s social security number, or perhaps a birthday, it’s a good idea to encrypt the email.

In short, you don’t have to be emailing nuclear launch codes in order to take advantage of encrypted email. It can be something as minor as an address you don’t want to be shared or as important as your social security number. Whatever it is you want to protect from potential scammers and predators, the email encryption feature on your email client can help to keep your sensitive information safe.

Need more email organization tips? Learn more about topics like how to forward an email or send one as text, or, how to manage spam, create calendar events, and more.