Emails are crucial for business communication. Companies rely on them to communicate efficiently. Email is not a secure platform. Cyber-threat actors can easily access email data and attachments without a good email security solution.
Trustifi, a global leader in email security solutions, offers a fully integrated and easy-to-use email encryption solution that empowers users with a single click.
What is Email Encryption, and Why is it Important?
Email encryption is critical for securing email and meeting various compliance with data protection regulations. The intended recipient can only access encrypted emails, keeping sensitive information safe.
When encrypting your emails, we recommend encrypting all messages for better security. Encrypting only sensitive emails may inadvertently tip off hackers to valuable information. Encrypting all messages makes it harder for hackers to identify sensitive information.
Various vital email encryption strategies, such as S/MIME, PGP, and Axecrypt, are available. Some services encrypt emails in transit and verify the recipient, while others use AES encryption to secure emails before sending them.
What are the Benefits of Email Encryption?
Email encryption protects sensitive information from unauthorized access and sophisticated email threats. This protection is essential for companies holding personal or financial data and are prone to business email compromise (BEC) attacks.
Encrypting emails using a combination of message-level encryption and Transport Layer Security (TLS) can significantly enhance security by protecting sensitive data from potential hackers.
What Factors Should Be Considered When Choosing an Email Encryption Solution?
Privacy and Legal Compliance
Not all industries mandate email encryption to meet their compliance obligations. However, healthcare, retail, finance, government, and higher education encrypt their emails and attachments. This decision helps these organizations comply with various privacy regulations and governance mandates.
Email encryption may apply to specific industries that conduct business within particular countries or handle Personally Identifiable Information(PII) related to people in those locations. For instance, if you deal with sensitive healthcare information, you protect it.
“For example, HIPAA’s Security Rule states that all protected data inside healthcare organizations must be encrypted before transmission. Therefore, if you send emails containing sensitive data, it is essential to use encryption to secure the data in transit and at rest.”
Ease of Use With a Range of Capabilities and Options.
The benefits of enabling email encryption include increasing the ability to protect every message leaving the organization and assisting with compliance requirements and data privacy regulations. These requirements would make email encryption mandatory. Yet, users who find this layer of protection challenging to use often will need to pay more attention to its benefits to choose to send unencrypted messages.
Security and IT email teams must enable a user-friendly email encryption solution that requires less time to manage. Another critical component to assist clients is the need for the email encryption solution to be easy to set up and onboard users. Ease-of-use migration from an existing solution is also a plus.
Cost.
The cost of any security solution needs to be part of the decision when an organization is considering email encryption. Many security solution providers offer email encryption as a standalone or part of a fully integrated bundle. Depending on the features and level of integration, organizations like the small-to-medium market may choose to go with a standalone portal-based email encryption solution with a small pool of licenses.
Other organizations in the mid-enterprise and large enterprises want to integrate email to increase the adoption of email encryption among their employees; businesses should consider a solution that eases the receiver problem by eliminating the third-party intermediary site requirements.
Cloud-based encryption supporting TLS, AES, PGP, S/Mime, and Military Grade Encryption Standards is a must.
Organizations reviewing their requirements for email encryption need to pay close attention to the critical length and method of encryption. Some vendors may only support TLS, S/MIME/ and PGP only. If your organization does business with others requiring full AES-256, this might narrow the choices when considering gaining the solution.
Here are some encryption methods all email security should support:
Transport Layer Security (TLS)
“TLS or Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a commonly used encryption protocol used in email security.” It plays a crucial role in safeguarding a large portion of online data transmission, encrypting information sent from users’ browsers, and securing emails.
TLS encryption prevents potential Man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks between the web browser and server client.
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
“The U.S. government and cryptography community chose AES as a symmetric block cipher to secure sensitive information.”
AES encryption involves applying various transformations to data within an array. Data is placed in various forms and undergoes multiple rounds of encryption with these transformations. “AES encryption supports key lengths of 128, 192, and 256 bits to encrypt and decrypt data in blocks of 128 bits.”
PGP and S/Mime.
PGP and S/MIME are standard protocols used for sending secure, encrypted emails. These secure protocols use the receiver’s public key for encryption and decryption. One fundamental difference is in how they interact with public keys.
”S/MIME uses a Certificate Authority (CA), while PGP relies on a Web of Confidence/Trust for key distribution. A CA issues digital certificates that verify that the public key belongs to the entities listed on the certificate.”
This service allows recipients of emails to trust the signatures on the emails, as a reputable third party has validated them.
Individuals or organizations can use PGP and S/MIME encryption as an add-on or through an email service provider. More importantly, PGP encryption is known for its high level of security when implemented correctly.
Military Grade Email Encryption.
Military-grade email encryption is critical for organizations planning to send or receive emails from a local, state, federal, or military entity—this level of encryption leverages AES with much larger key lengths. AES-256 Bit with a 2048-byte public key is the most secure encryption used by the U.S. military.
According to the National Security Agency (NSA), no one has reported a successful breach using AES-256. NSA also confirmed no one has successfully cracked AES-128 either.
How Does Trustifi Encrypt Messages with a Single Click?
Trustifi offers secure email encryption with just one click. Our cloud-based solution ensures the best email security for both senders and recipients, whether for small or large files. The user receives an email encrypted by the sender.
Once the user clicks the decrypt button, the message opens within Trustifi’s secured portal.
Trustifi makes it easy for anyone to send secure emails without understanding encryption or worrying about data loss.
What are the Top Five Rated Email Encryption Solutions of 2024?
2024, expect to see a crowded field of email encryption providers either becoming acquired or their features becoming integrated as part of an ecosystem solution. Organizations considering email encryption in 2024 should consider the following five providers. These provide delivered integrated email encryption with other email security features. Along with offering various solutions, these providers price their solutions between $10 to $100 per month per license.
Software Solution #1 Trustifi:
Trustifi is a cloud-based security software that offers features like two-factor authentication, email phishing attack prevention, email encryption, fraud detection, data loss prevention, multi-tenancy support, and single sign-on to protect email communications. This platform can help ensure that both inbound and outbound messages are secure. Trustifi also supported several compliance mandates with one-click compliance. This feature benefits organizations that support multiple vertical markets in several countries.
Software Solution #2 ProtonMail
Proton Mail is a popular email service known for its encryption and user privacy features. Based in Switzerland, academics from MIT and CERN developed it, showcasing its ambitious nature.
This solution uses end-to-end PGP encryption for security, including protection against email tracking links. Data becomes stored on encrypted Swiss servers in an underground bunker. Since the company focuses on PGP, the email address and subject line are exposed.
Software Solution #3 NeoCertified
NeoCertified offers an encrypted communication solution that emphasizes API integration. It is tailored for developers and businesses seeking to add secure email features to their existing platforms. NeoCertified is known for its API-focused email encryption capabilities and seamless integration with other platforms.
Software Solution #4 Virtru
Virtru is an email encryption app for businesses. You can access this solution through your Gmail and two-factor authentication. The application encrypts your messages and allows them to expire after a set time established by the user. All users can customize expiration dates as needed.
Software Solution #5 PreVeil
PreVeil is a secure service certified by the Department of Defense. This solution allows users to keep their current email address with full integration into Outlook, Apple Email, and Gmail. Users can choose from four permission levels to encrypt with their licenses.
“The free plan includes 5 gigabytes of encrypted storage, while the advanced plan, priced at $25 a month, offers 5 terabytes of storage.”
Which Two Are The Best Email Encryption Software Solutions?
Trustifi sets itself apart from the rest with its easy-to-use, one-click-to-encrypt strategy. This company’s ability to integrate its artificial intelligence(AI) inbound filter with its outbound email encryption, DLP, and data tokenization through a single management console, including an aggressive price point, makes them the preferred email encryption provider for the SMB, Mid-enterprise, and Fortune 500 companies.
Second to Trustifi, ProtonMail continues to deliver exceptional email encryption services, including all the content housed in underground vaults in Switzerland. ProtonMail grew out of the rigid Swiss regulations and their data protection laws. Developed by MIT and CERN, this solution continues to be well-received globally as a preferred PGP email encryption platform.
What are Some Helpful Tips When Implementing Email Encryption in your Organization?
Before an organization begins its deployment of email encryption, it needs to understand what it wants to protect, who it wants to protect, and how it intends to enable email encryption.
If the organization aims to protect 100% of all outbound email messages, the optimal way to accomplish this is through system-comprehensive outbound policy enablement. Configured within the cloud-based email security platform, the security engineer and the email administrator can configure an organization-wide outbound rule to encrypt all messages from their domain. This “all-in rule” will encrypt all outbound email traffic without user interaction.
The second component within the email encryption deployment plan calls for deciding who to protect. If the company wants to protect 100% of all outbound emails from their sending domain, then the blank rule will apply to everyone in the organization’s active directory(AD) list.
If the organization encrypts a specific number of users, this is also possible through an AD group list.
Another element of the email encryption strategy is allowing the users to decide which emails they wish to send securely. This feature is available on most email encryption solutions. However, the organization should have a “Catch-me-all-all “ rule in place just in case someone forgets to encrypt a message containing sensitive information.
FAQ What are Common Challenges and Successes with Email Encryption?
Question 1: What do I have to do to encrypt a message?
Answer: 1. Within the Trustifi plugin for M365 and Google Workspace, the button to encrypt is at the top right corner. Click on the icon, and a menu option screen will open to help you protect your outbound message.
Question.2: What if I need to remember to encrypt a message that carries our client’s social security numbers?
Answer: 2 Trustifi’s global policies allow organizations to catch any email left with sensitive and apply email encryption in case the user forgets to do so.
Question 3: When I send an encrypted message, do I need to send the receiving party a password?
Answer 3: No need! The receiver will simply click on the decrypt button inside the email.
Get Started With Email Encryption Software Today!
Whether you are looking for an extra layer of protection in your existing email environment or a full-suite solution, the expertise and simplicity Trustifi offers will exceed your expectations. Let’s discuss pricing and a customized email security plan for you.
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