Gary:
With everyone working from home during this health crisis, I was wondering about sending unencrypted email.
Do you think it is necessary to encrypt Mail and if so, how does one go about it. I’ve googled it and everything that comes up does not work (too out of date).
Thank you!
—–
Scott
It is very difficult to encrypt email end-to-end. If you just want to encrypt to the server, then you are likely already doing it unless you are using some old email system. Most modern email is encrypted to the server, such as iCloud, Gmail, etc.
But to encrypt all the way to the recipient you need to have a shared encryption scheme and keys. This is rarely done unless you are already in some organization that has special IT people doing this level of security. To do it yourself, you'd need a way to get the other person the key, like seeing them in person.
This is why when you get email from your health care provider, you usually just get a link to log in and check the message. By logging into their system, you can see a secure message. Healthcare providers have laws that make them send secure messages, which is why they need to do this.
Whether it is necessary to go to great lengths to encrypt your communication really depends on the situation. For most people, probably no. Treat it like physical mail -- most likely to get to the other end without a problem, but people do rob the mail and mail employees can open a letter if they really wanted. If you think you need a level of security, like you are on the board of directors of a public company or work at a high level of government, then consult with the IT people I'm sure you already have about this.
Hello Gary, Apple say iCloud email is encrypted in transit, but not in storage.
Is thatwhat you mean in your first sentence?
Love the website.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
All traffic between your devices and iCloud Mail is encrypted with TLS 1.2.
Consistent with standard industry practice, iCloud does not encrypt data stored on IMAP mail servers.
All Apple email clients support optional S/MIME encryption.
Indy: End-to-end would mean that it is encrypted from you to the recipient. Email is typically encrypted from you to your email service (iCloud) and from the recipient's email service to them. But that middle part is the problem.