End-to-End Email Encryption

What Does End-to-End Email Encryption Mean?

End-to-end email encryption is a state-of-the-art encryption technology designed to make emails more secure from the outbox to the eventual destination. Although this is not a feature of many current email platforms, it is expected to be integrated into some common email services in the future.

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Techopedia Explains End-to-End Email Encryption

The necessity of end-to-end email encryption is related to the vulnerability of this kind of text messaging over the global Internet. Although individual hackers can get their hands on email data, so can the U.S. government; in fact, the revelation that the National Security Agency is actively collecting the email data of Americans has been an important component in the push for more pervasive encryption methods.

With some email providers looking to use end-to-end email encryption, the use of cutting-edge encryption for email may eventually become a regular feature in email communications. Typically, this type of encryption involves using a public key system, where the sender and the receiver need the keys to decode a message at its destination. This creates a kind of “secure tunnel” for data packets in that they cannot be easily captured and interpreted in transit.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…