Without TLS, the communication between email servers is transmitted as plain text, and anyone with relatively rudimentary knowledge of computer networks can intercept it and read it. Over the years, many technical workarounds to ensure better privacy of email communication have been implemented by email providers, and several secure email services have emerged, offering high levels of privacy and security.Īll best email service providers today have implemented transport level encryption using TLS, which is a cryptographic protocol that provides communications security over a computer network. The internet email message format, as it's defined by RFC 5322, specifies a syntax for text messages that are sent between computer users, but it doesn't deal with encryption or any other means of preventing unauthorized access to personal information exchanged via email. Today, our security requirements are radically different, yet email hasn't changed all that much.

Back when email entered limited use in the 1960s and 1970s, security wasn't anyone's top priority.

Protonmail is it safe