Sending
secure email attachments in Gmail has become very important, but sending an encrypted email attachment in Gmail without an encryption extension can present security vulnerabilities for the email recipient. Users don’t realize how unsafe Gmail app can be, and how the user’s emails in transit can be intercepted by unethical third parties. With more than 1.5 billion active users worldwide, Google’s Gmail currently dominates the email provider market and has grown leaps and bounds since its inception in 2004. Who doesn’t have a Gmail address? And professionally, Google’s G Suite service is utilized by more than 5 million companies, empowering businesses across countless industries to communicate, collaborate, share or send important files, documents, etc. every day. In 2020, the Gmail platform is both frequented and beloved for the convenience and efficiency that it offers users.
Unfortunately, it does not provide adequate encrypted attachment protection measures in its email service. By performing regular scans of user emails and gathering data to inform advertisers, Google ultimately puts users’ utmost valuable and sensitive information in jeopardy. Although many users have come to brush this fact off, in some cases, deeming it a harmless, unavoidable part of technological life, emails in transit that don’t utilize
S/MIME encryption or transport-level security can become intercepted by third parties with the potential to become leveraged for malicious purposes and phishing attacks. Although seamless and built-in, Gmail’s S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) and
TLS encryption (Transport Layer Security) options are lacking, only working correctly if both the sender and recipient are equipped with it. Therefore, it can be intercepted in the mail server. Without proper email encryption enabled, confidential Gmail attachments pertaining to business, financial, and even personal information might fall into the wrong hands. Thankfully, third-party
email encryption software solutions are available to ensure the security of all attachments and messages transmitted.
Confidential Mode in Gmail
To boost email security offerings, Gmail rolled out its confidential mode option in 2018, allowing “users to send secure emails that recipients can’t forward, copy, print, or download.”
Although the name of this security method (Gmail confidential mode) evokes a sense of heightened data safety and confidentiality, in actuality, it effectively provides neither.
With Gmail’s confidential mode enabled from the security settings, users are also empowered to generate an SMS passcode via text message, activate a message expiration date, and revoke the recipient’s access to a specific confidential email.
Thus, their confidential mode thwarts any sharing — whether accidental or otherwise — on the part of the email’s recipient. And a recipient that intends to share an email’s confidential message s or attachments with unintended viewers is not prevented from doing so with ease via a simple screenshot. This adds an extra layer of security to your message.
Furthermore, this security confidential mode does not offer end-to-end encryption, permitting Gmail and additional providers to scan and collect email contents.
Cons of Gmail Confidential Mode
As is often the case with everything that is free, the cons can be a problem when it comes to choosing one option or the alternative. Gmail’s confidential mode requires you to have the recipient’s mobile number, which isn’t always the case. Also, it adds a few obligatory extra steps to the sender and the recipient, taking precious time out of their day to day.
How to Send Secure Email in Gmail and Encrypt Your Attachments
So how do you send secure email in Gmail and how do you encrypt attachments? The attachments shared via Gmail are often just as sensitive, or potentially more so than their corresponding messages.
End-to-end encryption masterfully encrypts an email’s contents while in flight and at rest, ridding emails of most security vulnerabilities. Undoubtedly, this makes end-to-end encryption the most secure method to encrypt Gmail, as it protects the user’s valuable messages, files, or a sensitive document, etc.
Although Google has often entertained the conversation around implementing end-to-end encryption for protecting gmail attachments that users are willingly or accidentally sharing, it has failed to do so as of yet.
Gmail offers users a few added security options at a price. Still, to fill the void left behind by Google’s Gmail, several third-party encryption services have stepped up to offer their own applications and extensions so users can properly send secure, encrypted Gmail attachments.
Upgrade Your Gmail Account
In order to upgrade the data security which operates within your email account, one might consider upgrading their Gmail account from the free model to one of the platform’s paid offerings.
Both the G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Education plans (called
Google Workspace now) provide S/MIME encryption. A step up from the TLS (Transport Layer Security) standard encryption provided by Google, which automatically encrypts all outgoing emails and keeps your emails secure, S/MIME enables users to encrypt emails with user-specific keys and are required to be shared with the intended recipient (a public key and a corresponding private key). Only the recipient with the corresponding key can decrypt the confidential emails.
Users of either of Gmail’s paid models can discern the level of encryption being employed by any given email. With this being said, S/MIME works based on asymmetric encryption and can only be successful if exercised by both the sender and the recipient (which represents an improvement with respect to TLS encryption).
In other words, an email, even if sent utilizing S/MIME, will remain unencrypted if the intended recipient uses an email provider free of encryption. And to top it off, S/MIME does not prevent Google’s scanning of emails for advertising data collection.
Find Another Email Provider For Advanced File Encryption
For those transmitting highly sensitive, confidential, or classified data, Gmail might not be a suitable fit. Although creating and transitioning to a new email account can be burdensome, it may help to achieve the level of security that is necessitated by your business, personal affairs, etc. It is critical to be incredibly diligent when researching a new email provider to ensure that this switch will be permanent and provide the desired
privacy and data protection. Along with end-to-end encryption, the most secure provider should offer guaranteed encryption to send secure attachments, no matter the recipient’s provider, as well as a zero-knowledge policy.
Use Gmail Encryption Software from Trustifi
Gmail attachments must be encrypted before being sent. By doing so, in the event that an email is intercepted and/or forwarded by a malicious actor, the encrypted attachments in Gmail will remain secure, rendering them useless to cybercriminals, hackers, and other third-party entities. However, discovering the most streamlined, user-friendly, and efficient method of Gmail attachment encryption does not have to be a daunting task. While the encryption solutions provided by Google seem to miss the mark and most third-party plug-ins are challenging to use, users who intend to stick with Gmail can seek the assistance of an email security provider.
Trustifi is a
comprehensive email security platform that offers cost-effective and versatile Gmail encryption options to a variety of clients, spanning virtually all industries, including highly regulated ones like Pharmaceutical,
Healthcare, Financial, Legal, and Real Estate.
As an add-on Gmail extension, Trustifi integrates seamlessly with it. And with NSA-grade end-to-end encryption and secure mobile relay, Trustifi delivers user-friendly, complete protection for both incoming and outgoing Gmail messages to all clients.
Trustifi secures data with a private key which can only be decrypted with a private key, which the intended recipient has; the private key is validated with a Certificate Authority.
Moreover, Trustifi’s customizable encryption solutions enable clients to recall, block, modify, and set expirations on previously sent and received emails, making it the best user experience compared to any other option. Trustifi also allows clients to prevent the printing and removal of metadata from attachments.
Overall, Trustifi’s security solutions provide Gmail and non-Gmail users with unmatched visibility and security measures, enabling increased oversight and peace of mind.
Conclusion
Email messages and attachments landing in the wrong hands is not an uncommon occurrence. Highly sensitive data in the form of business presentations, contracts, agreements, mock-ups, and the like are sent and received via email every day. And typically, once such emails are sent out, users lose control over these attachments entirely. Without file-specific protection, when you send attachments, tax documents, business spreadsheets and even personal photos can be stolen if your email message is hijacked on the way to its destination.
Fortunately, email encryption software and solutions like those provided by Trustifi are here to help you have complete control and send emails and attachments without worrying. Serving as the user’s first line of defense against data breaches and malicious interceptions, Trustifi also helps you remain compliant with data protection laws.
With Trustifi’s NSA grade end-to-end email encryption services, clients can rest assured that any attachments sent and received via Gmail will be secured, protected, and only accessed by intended viewers.
