Google and Microsoft to better secure your emails – Yahoo! News

If you send an email, the message is protected by a technology that almost forty years is. It is therefore time to work on a new technology, and Google and Microsoft lead the way.

Sending an e-mail is not always safely. Messages are not encrypted in many cases and it is not always clear to the sender if he sends an email to the right person. Email can therefore quite easily be intercepted and read by an attacker.

How does the technology behind e-mail
To send emails using e -maildiensten technology Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which was developed in the eighties. In 2002, this technology was improved with STARTTLS that the content of e-mails while sending encrypted. But STARTTLS is not used by anyone and you do not protect even against the interception of mail by an attacker.

The intercept is done through a so-called man-in-the-middle attack in which the attacker himself occurs when the recipient of an e-mail.

the new technology from Google and Microsoft
Google and Microsoft want to introduce a new technology called Simple mail Transfer Protocol Strict transport Security (SMTP STS), which messages are encrypted during transmission and authenticates the identity of the recipient.

SMTP STS forces while sending an email an encrypted connection, so that the contents of a for example, email is not an ISP can be seen. In addition, the technology checks the identity of the recipient. For example, this is done by checking whether you actually communicates with Google’s servers when an e-mail to a Gmail address sent – and that you can not communicate with the rogue server of an Internet criminal

The Proposal. to promote SMTP STS to standard was submitted to the US internet Engineering Task Force, the organization that deals with internet standards. Within six months, the organization responds to the proposal.

PGP
Companies like Google and Microsoft can better protect their e-mail, for example, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP ). With this technology, the contents of an email in a specific way encrypted so that only the recipient can view the message, and not, for example, the e-mail service provider.

This powerful form of encryption run companies like Google not because they are no longer your emails can scan and based on that you can voorschotelen personalized ads.

RTL Z / Daniel Verlaan