Though most don't take advantage of it, e-mail users do have the ability to encrypt attachments using desktop technology. They can bear the financial and the processing cost that goes with the encrypted approach to e-mail more easily than smaller businesses or individuals can. Examples include financial and other companies that send financial statements, invoices, or medical information in encrypted messages. In addition, the processing load of encrypting all that junk mail might hamper or even destroy the economics and operational models of botnet-based spam and virus operations.īut encryption technology is not readily available nor is it generally inexpensive, except to enterprise users that buy large-scale, server-based encryption systems. After all, if people only read encrypted mail, they’d never open a spam or a virus-carrying message or attachment. The simplest way to secure e-mail may be to encrypt all messages. The later addition of MIME attachments has led to virus outbreaks occurring at the speed of light.

The bottom line is that nothing is secure about the SMTP protocol we use for e-mail.Īdopting SMTP for business and personal use led to readily intercepted e-mail messages, spam, phishing attacks. Reflect for a moment on the fact that the 'S' in SMTP stands for 'simple,' not 'secure.' The e-mail protocol was originally developed for a small number of collegial scientists sending messages about cooperative research over a closed network - not for personal, corporate and government users sending business plans, contracts, patent applications, or confidential medical records over a widely used public network.

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