MobileActive.org

Email wasn’t designed with security in mind. Unless you take steps to protect your communication, emails are sent in plain text - and so are your email account username and password.

At the same time, if you and your recipient are taking the appropriate security precautions, mobile email can be a secure and reliable alternative to other forms of mobile communication. If you have data service for your mobile, encrypted email can replace text messaging, and if you aren’t able to access a website securely to upload content - photos or videos for example - getting it to a trusted contact as an email attachment can be a safer alternative.

This article suggests the following tactics for improving the security of your mobile email:

• Remembering basic email security precautions and vulnerabilities - password, deletion, spam and viruses
• Enabling TLS (SSL) for all email, and making sure your email provider supports it
• Encrypting your email to certain contacts using OpenPGP or S/MIME
• Using a web-based encrypted email provider such as Hushmail.

Email security basics

Even if you’re not using encrypted email, you can take some basic precautions to improve your email security. For example