![]() ![]() It’s fairly easy for anyone there to “listen in” to the data flowing to and from your machine. The one place where the average person may well be at more risk than they realize is in open Wi-Fi hotspots. This seems like a long list of entry points at which your email could be exposed to prying eyes. Naturally, anyone with access to your recipient’s machine can do whatever the recipient could, and thus could read, copy, or otherwise access your email conversation.Malware on your recipient’s machine puts your conversation at risk just as much as if it were on your machine.Other machines on your recipient’s network have the same issues as the machines on your network.Your recipient’s email provider has the same access yours does. ![]() Your recipient’s ISP: just as your ISP can see everything you do, your recipient’s ISP can see everything they do, such as receive the email you sent them.The provider’s own networking and hosting providers could be included as well. Your email provider can examine your email as a side effect of providing your email service.Your ISP can examine all the data you send and receive on the internet as a side effect of providing your connection to the internet.The most obvious is an open (unencrypted) Wi-Fi hotspot, where any machine connected to the hotspot can see the data sent and received by other machines on that same hotspot. I say “may” because it depends on how your network is configured. Other machines on your network may be able to see your email as it’s transmitted between your machine and your mail server.Even typing your message could be recorded if malware is present. The concern behind malicious compromise of your machine is that malware can gain access to more than just email. Malware is just a special case of someone having access to your machine.Anyone with access to your machine has several ways they could examine your email conversations, from installing spyware to copying your mail folders to simply opening your email program and reading your mail.Who has access to your emailĪnyone who has access to the network, network equipment, mail servers, or PCs across which your email travels can potentially read your mail. Let’s examine those two criteria in more detail. As it travels from your computer to your mail server to my mail server and finally to my PC, it’s stored in formats that are easily read by anyone who has access and cares to do so. report this ad What is possibleīy default, the content of email is not encrypted or obscured in any way. Įmail, and how messages make it from your computer to mine when you press “Send”, is something the average computer user not only doesn’t understand but has no reason to understand.Īs a result, sometimes threats that should be of concern are overlooked, and issues that are really no threat at all can prevent people from using the technology to its fullest – or cause them to avoid it altogether. My experience is most people have an overinflated sense of risk when it comes to threats and technologies they don’t understand. Your confidential business information scenario warrants consideration, but I want to discuss the case for the average email user first. If you are, then secure alternatives, like encrypted attachments or not using email at all, are the most common solutions. The good news is that most of us are not interesting enough to be at risk of being hacked. Email was never really designed for the security we might need today. ![]()
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