The most secure email services of 2021

Email was by no means meant to be secure. Most folks don’t notice that others can simply see what you write in an email. That’s why it’s a good suggestion to make use of the most secure email service you’ll find.

Compared to extra trendy varieties of communication, akin to Zoom, Slack, or Teams, email is historical and has limitations that may result in safety points. However, through the years, safety researchers have made email extra secure in an age when hackers are by no means far-off.

What to search for in a secure email service

Whether you’re a house consumer or work for a big company, it’s good to know what safety features your email service has. Below, you’ll discover some options it is best to search for in secure email service and the way they might profit you.

End-to-end encryption

Encryption obscures to maintain it secure from snooping hackers. Sending an email over an encrypted community primarily disguises the message’s textual content, making it unattainable to learn with no decryption key. 

Some email services solely encrypt information when it’s touring, leaving it in plain textual content on the different finish. End-to-end encryption overcomes this by requiring the recipient to even have a personal decryption key that enables them to view the email’s contents.

PGP encryption

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) arrived within the Nineties to secure emails over insecure networks utilizing pairs of private and non-private keys. 

Sending an email with PGP makes use of the recipient’s public key to secure the contents and a password to authenticate to an email service. A recipient decrypts this message utilizing their personal key to learn it. Anyone who lacks the personal key can’t learn the contents.

Two-factor authentication

This provides a safety layer by requiring the consumer to enter a code from a textual content message or authentication token after coming into their username and password. 

This extra authentication limits a hacker’s entry, as the possibilities of them having your username, password, and your cellphone or token is far decrease.

Server location

An email server’s location has a bearing on how secure it’s. Countries just like the US and UK share intelligence information about residents, and this information may be collected from servers based mostly in these international locations. 

Other international locations — Germany and Switzerland, for instance — have more durable privateness legal guidelines, so many secure email services are based mostly there to stop snooping.

What secure email services can be found?

There are a lot of secure email services accessible. Here are six of the most secure choices. 

ProtonMail

URL: www.protonmail.com

Price: Free to €6.25 ($7.66) per consumer monthly

Storage: 500MB-20GB

One of the world’s largest secure email services, ProtonMail presents end-to-end encryption and a raft of different safety features, akin to encryption through secure implementations of AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), RSA, and OpenPGP.

You can even ship end-to-end encrypted emails to non-ProtonMail customers by sending the recipient a hyperlink that shows the encrypted message on their browser. You can then share a passphrase with the recipient to decrypt the message.

The firm says it might’t learn any emails it hosts as a result of the info is encrypted so it’s inaccessible to the supplier. The supplier can’t decrypt the info both, so it might’t hand it over to 3rd events.

Plus, it’s based mostly in Switzerland, which has some of the world’s strictest privateness legal guidelines. It additionally has a no-logs coverage and presents self-destructing emails.

Tutanota

URL: www.tutanota.com

Price: Free to €72 ($88.26) base charge per 12 months +  €36 ($44.13) per consumer per 12 months

Included storage: 1GB-10GB

Paid storage: Up to 1TB at €600 ($735.50) per 12 months

This Germany-based secure email service supplier presents a GDPR-compliant email service with built-in encryption and a secure calendar that enables nobody however you to see your appointments. It additionally has desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux and cellular apps for iOS and Android.

It makes use of AES-128 symmetric encryption or RSA-2048 uneven encryption, relying on the email recipient. The service additionally obfuscates email topic strains and attachment names.

Other safety features embrace end-to-end encrypted mailbox, end-to-end encrypted tackle guide, computerized end-to-end encrypted emails between customers, end-to-end encrypted emails to any email tackle through a password.

It additionally has a secure password reset that offers the corporate no entry in any respect. Users can execute a full-text search of encrypted information domestically. There can also be TLS with assist for PFS, DMARC, DKIM, DNSSEC, MTA-STS.

MailFence

URL: www.mailfence.com/en/

Price: Free to €25 ($30.65) monthly

Storage: 500MB-50GB

MailFence is encrypted with a secure, open-source implementation of OpenPGP and presents cloud-based calendar, contact, and doc instruments. Existing PGP customers can even import and handle their keypairs within the app.

It presents end-to-end encryption and digital signatures with information saved on Belgian servers. Customers can ship encrypted messages to customers who don’t use PGP. It additionally presents SSL/TLS, Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), MTA-STS, and HSTS for safeguarding your information whereas in movement.

This Belgium-based secure email service donates 15% of the Pro and Ultra plans revenues to assist the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the European Digital Rights Foundation.

Hushmail

URL: www.hushmail.com

Price: $49.98 (private); $5.99 per consumer monthly (small companies); $9.99-$39.00 monthly (well being care); $9.99 monthly (regulation); and $3.99 per consumer monthly (nonprofits) 

Storage: 10GB (private, small enterprise, regulation); 10-15GB per consumer (well being care); and 10GB per consumer (nonprofits)

Hushmail presents end-to-end encryption utilizing open-source OpenPGP, however topic strains are unencrypted. User passwords are additionally hashed, and Hushmail makes use of a zero-knowledge mannequin. Plus, the corporate can’t decrypt emails with no password. 

However, if the supplier will get an enforceable order beneath British Columbia regulation, they’ll should reveal information in an unencrypted format.

Mailbox.org

URL: www.mailbox.org/en/

Price: €1 ($1.23) monthly to €25+ ($30.66) monthly

Storage: 2-5GB

Mailbox.org is a Germany-based secure email supplier and is appropriate with cellular units and third-party purchasers. Mailbox.org additionally presents cloud storage and secure video conferencing options.

The service permits customers to register anonymously with out having to enter any private particulars. SSL/TLS encryption protects information transmission, and it makes use of full PGP encryption. Users can select to stop sending mail to recipients with out secure mailboxes.

The supplier additionally makes use of (EC)DHE algorithms for Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), which prevents any doable decryption of recorded information site visitors sooner or later. Mailbox.org secures its area with DNSSEC and DANE/TLSA and makes use of HSTS, CAA, CSP, MTA-STS, and X-XSS to stop man-in-the-middle assaults (MitM).

Posteo

URL: www.posteo.de/en

Price: €1 ($1.23) monthly

Storage: 2GB 

Paid storage: €0.25 ($0.31) monthly per GB (as much as 20GB) 

Posteo works on any machine to allow cross-platform synchronization and consists of spam and anti-virus filters. Plus, it strips figuring out IP addresses from all emails. Users can join and pay for the service anonymously.  The agency is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, the place it has been operating since 2009. 

Posteo additionally makes use of TLS with Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), DANE/TLSA, HTTP Strict Transport Security HSTS, SSH

Its servers’ laborious disks are AES encrypted to ban data-theft and unauthorized entry and are in a extremely secure German information heart. There can also be elective on-server email encryption with RSA, AES, HMAC, and bcrypt hashing.

Emails despatched utilizing Posteo’s webmail interface include neither a consumer’s native nor public IP tackle. Users can secure Posteo accounts with two-factor authentication and set it up on all units with free apps.