In business, communication emails have become an integral part. This has become a hassle-free way to send and receive information. In the current world, one can not even think of running a business successfully without relying on email communication. Email remains the most reliable and trusted source of communication for innumerable users across the world. You will be astonished to know that approximately 81% of small businesses rely on emails as a customer acquisition channel. The number of email users in the US alone is anticipated to reach 250 million in the year 2020.
On the other hand, with the rising popularity of the internet, the threat of malicious activities also increased. These were the threats to stealing data and misusing it further. Email encryption market has started gaining popularity with the rising cases of stealing personal details.
EMAIL SPOOFING!
WHALING!
VISHING!
EMAIL PHISHING!
All these incidents are alarming and mushrooming like never before. The important information is no less than the treasure mine of a business. For an entrepreneur, one case of spoofing can lead to the loss of various irreparable losses. Let us understand the term spoofing in detail-
SPOOFING- A cybercriminal masquerading
Spoofing is a wide term that is extremely detrimental to the business. The scammer disguises the identity as something else and masquerades as a trustworthy devices or entity for something favorable to the hacker- and of course, detrimental to you. So, spoofing is when online scammer disguises the identity. Although, it can be applied to range of communication channels which involve social engineering.
So, how does spoofing work?
It mainly relies on 2 elements- the social engineering aspect and the spoof itself. This nudges the user to take action, for example, spoofers know which strings to stretch to manipulate the user. The spoofing is related to websites, emails, and phone calls. Email spoofing is the most common type of attacks. The spoofed mail request permission to access system or money transfer. Also, email spoofing also relies on the social engineering which is the ability to persuade humans to trust the trick as legitimate and to take action and instantly open attachment, transfer the money or hack the system.
Although, with the advent of the technology and rising activities of hacking, engineers are coming up with unique ideas such as, email encryption. Email encryption market is one imperative thing that gives an unbreakable security to the content. Let us understand in detail about the meaning of email encryption.
Email encryption
This is the authentication process which eliminates the chances of messages being read by an unauthorized or unintended individual. The process helps in scrambling the original message and further convert the message into an undecipherable or unreadable format. In fact, email encryption has become very necessary while sharing the sensitive information through email.
Hackers misuse the emails to target users and steal the data, such as login credentials, names, and addresses. The email encryption solutions utilize digital signature or cryptography mechanisms for the purpose of email encryption.
Encryption can be utilized while sending emails with sensitive information. Furthermore, in email encryption, the plain text gets converted into cipher text. On receiving end, the email can only be read with the private key that is used for decoding the email.
Apart from this, in the countries like the USA, victims of spoofing are able to file a complaint against it. The email encryption market trends are very much liked by people nowadays. Further, in this blog let us discuss email encryption and its market analysis-
Exploring importance of the email encryption market: –
Email encryption is imperative because it always protects the user from the adversity of a data breach. The hacker can not do anything if they can not read your message.
The year 2013, approximately 13 billion data records have been stolen. Well, that’s appalling!!
In 2018, it has been estimated that the average cost of a data breach was around USD 4 million.
Hence, the email encryption market growth is rising owing to the growing threat from hackers. Email encryption is like a shield and a commendable preventive measure one can take to robust their cybersecurity.
Moreover, if we dig deep into the email encryption market, we will find out that there are various types of email encryption techniques are available. The prominent types of email encryption are written below.
- Transport level encryption
This encryption secures the data right at the instant of transport. Although the transport level encryption not necessarily secures the data after or before the transit. This is hugely affordable kind of email encryption but little less safe than end-to-end.
- End-to-end encryption
The end-to-end type of encrypted mail secures all the data at both of the ends which are the source as well as destination. This process involves email encryption even before the data sent out and further gets unencrypted from the receiver while receiving. The studies of email encryption market outlook entails that end-to-end encryption is the most secure encryption.
These two main encryption techniques have various different protocols which are designed to secure data.
- S/MIME and PGP
This is the most extensively used and imperative protocols incorporated in the end-to-end encrypted email. This technique was first released in the year 1991. In this method, a key is used to encrypt data and further the key is also used at the receiver’s end.
S/MIME states for secure/multipurpose internet mail extensions, which is built on centrally managed key model. While PGP is decentralized approach of email encryption.
- STARTTLS
If you are utilizing transport layer security; STARTTLS is able to upgrade a plain simple text into an encrypted mail.
- MTA-STS or DANE
The STARTTLS is a baseline for the purpose of email encryption, it is good to add more layers of protection to the emails while they are in the transit. DANE which means DNS-based authentication of named entities and Message Transfer Agent Strict Transport Security also known as MTA-STS are used to maximize the security of STARTTL. The STRIPTLS attacks can be prevented by the DANE.
- Bit message
This offers end-to-end encryption by using peer-to-peer authentication just like the cryptocurrency. This method is extremely popular amongst the people holding small businesses. The system has the following features such as,
- Powerful security tools
- Decentralization
- Hermetic encryption
- Hidden sender and recipient
- Trustless frameworks
- Proof of work requirements
- GNU privacy guard
This is a hybrid encryption model that utilizes both symmetric key cryptography and public key. This method increases the ease of use and speed, by fabricating a pair of asymmetric keys.
These are main email encryption technique available in the email encryption market. Let us take a glimpse on the major difference between the main techniques-
| PGP/MIME | S/MIME |
| Decentralized authority | Centralized authority |
| Need a 3rd party encryption tool to implement | Already built into large web-based email companies like outlook and Gmail |
| Flexibility to create own key code | Key code is already made for the user |
Apart from this here are few tips everyone should always use to avoid threatening phenomenon of spoofing.
It is very important to apply some safety tips to minimize the exposure of spoofing attacks: –
- Always avoid to click on the links or unknown attachments obtained from the anonymous sources. These mails could be viruses or malware which would holds capacity to infect the system.
- Never answer calls or email form any unrecognized sender. Any kind of communication between the scammer and you hold a threat.
- Try to utilize 2-factor authentication because these email encryptions add a security layer in the authentication process. If you apply these security methods, it becomes extremely hard for the attackers to hack the accounts or system.
- Always use strong password because it is not easy to guess it. A strong password is made up of a combination of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, and special characters.
- Keep reviewing the privacy settings frequently. There are privacy setting available on every social media networking sites, the user should always be careful about whom they are connecting with.
- Keep your software and network up to date. Software updates has bug fixes, security patches, and new features. These features reduce the risk of security breaches and malware infection.
Apart from this, one can encrypt emails in Gmail, outlook, IOS, yahoo, and AOL. There are various methods of encrypting email manually. Also you can avail of the benefits from the companies providing email encryption. Below is the listing of the few notable providers in the email encryption market: –
- Cipher mail- It supports encryption by using S/MIME, TLS, Open PGP, and PDF. Also, it is very famous for its compatibility with the android devices.
- Protonmail- It also allows the user to enable an end-to-end encryption and it has PGP compatibility.
- Virtru- It renders an end-to-end email encryption services and it is compatible with outlook, Gmail, yahoo, and Hotmail. It has free and paid plans.
In a nutshell,
It is quite evident that email encryption has become need of hour. The market is thriving owing to the rising demand in the market. There are various exhaustive email encryption market reports which can help the reader in taking sound decisions.
