The people who know how to look up the mail only those will can see the email which you send via email platforms like Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo. There is a series of servers through which emails bounced and cross so many internet networks. In this case, the email handlers are not secure with encryption and are also not protected by other mechanisms. What does this mean?
This means that hackers are able to read your company’s or customer’s data and it will create a risk to your information which send via emails. All the financial and reputational details of the company opened in front of the hacker which is not safe.
What is an Email Certificate?
Whenever you discuss email certificates with some other person then they will usually refer you to the X.509 type of digital certificate which is used for securing the data of the email users. To enable secure email communication, you should install a digital file of an email certificate for your email application.
The common names of email certificates are email security certificates, email encryption certificates, S/MIME (secure/multipurpose internal mail extension) certificates, etc. One of the famous email certificates is S/MIME which helps the users and allows them to sign their email communication digitally as well as encrypt the content which includes files, attachments, images, etc. The modern and high-tech version of the email will show after the email certificate installation.
What is the need for an Email certificate?
The emails which you send to the recipient can be read by anyone or any server if you don’t use an email certificate. This not includes only one person; it can be a lot of people which can read your emails if passes through without encryption of email certificate. This is just like a postcard sending which can be read by postal workers and also whoever wants to read. Email certificate provides you a 100% guarantee of not leaking your data and information as well as encrypted transmission of information from the sender to the receiver.
A different kind of certificate used by an email server to protect the data is called a server authentication SSL certificate. The unprotected emails will pass through various lines of the internet in which anyone can read it so always send your emails with protection by an email certificate.
What is the work of an Email certificate?
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used by the email certificate in a nutshell to:
- Digitally sign the emails by the users and identity verification through the attestation of the third party trusted authority which is known as a certificate authority (CA).
- The entire contents are used to encrypt the emails by the users so that all the information will be secured before transmission from various servers across different internal networks. The data is properly protected from the man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.
How does an Email security certificate work?
The asymmetric encryption method is used for the working of an email encryption certificate. To encrypt an email public key is used which sends to the recipient and one is the private key which is used to decrypt the message automatically. When the two keys are there then there are no chances of leaking of the information while email transmission.
This encryption method is also used in the SSL/TLS certificate and cryptocurrencies. Some of the steps which you need to know about how your data distribute if you do not have an email certificate and how it can be hacked.
- New email creation in outlook.
- Draft an email content and attach an excel spreadsheet.
- Click the send option for sending the plaintext email from outlook.
- From your email platform, the plaintext email will be sent to the email server through a channel that is encrypted.
- After that from the email server, the content of the email and attachment of the spreadsheet will be sent to the internet.
- The data of the email will further send to the email server of the recipient via the internet.
- The email data which is received from the recipient of the email is unencrypted, unsigned, and unverifiable from the sender’s side. It is very easy for them to open the email and read the plaintext as well as can open the spreadsheet attachment.
Where do I get an Email certificate?
You will get the email certificate from the trusted Certificate authorities which we have discussed. The major email platforms are covered under these email certificates which you purchase from CAs like Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc.
Problems with Email certificates
There are advantages of email certificates but you can also face some problems which are as follows:
- SMIME certificates are not used by all the email clients so there are times when people get confused with smime.p7s email attachments.
- Normally for webmail clients, email certificates are not considered because servers have to keep the private key which prevents end-to-end encryption.
- Without stopping the gateway of the company there are times in which malware can be sent in an encrypted email also.
- The messages cannot be readable when SMIME certificate private key gets lost.
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