In the last 20 years, communication technology has evolved beyond our wildest dreams.
And while today, we have so many communication platforms available, according to The Radicati Group’s Email Statistics Report 2016, people still send over 215 billion emails every day.
You have to admit that the number is quite impressive. Despite of that, you might be thinking that email’s popularity is slowly declining, but you cannot be more wrong.
In fact, according to the same report, the number is going to grow at an annual rate of 4.6%. This means by the end of a decade, we’ll be sending more than 257 billion emails per day.
The Security Question
In spite of all of its benefits, your email account contains practically all the information there is to know about you. Just think about it. For your emails, anyone out there can learn about your relationships, medical history and of course, your work.
And if someone gets a hold of your account, he could easily impersonate you, scam your colleagues and friends, not to mention get access to your financial information and use passwords to any account linked to your email address.
And this problem is a lot more common than you think it is. For example, as NBC News reports, last year, security agency Hold Security discovered that 272.3 million accounts were breached by a group of Russian hackers, including millions of Yahoo, Gmail and Microsoft email users.
Email Security in the Office
Now, if your job largely depends on email communication, things might be even worse.
For instance, did you know that around 87% of senior managers had their email or cloud account hacked in the past? Well, according to a recent Stroz Friedberg survey, no matter how strong your security standards are, chances are your account will get breached at some point during your career.
But wait – if you’re a business owner – things get even worse.
The same survey revealed that around 55% of lower-ranking workers believe that security isn’t their responsibility. Generally, employees think that every issue should be handled by the IT department. Seeing how one unencrypted email with HIPAA-protected data is all it takes for your business to get a hefty fine – email security should be a top priority for your organization.
Enter the Virtual Private Network
Now, one solution to this email problem would be to start using proxies to mask your location and encrypt the data. However, there are two major issues with proxy networks, especially if you decide to use free ones.
First thing, they are mostly unreliable and often extremely slow and second, they could be also set up by hackers.
And that’s why it better to use a Virtual Private Network to protect your email. A VPN functions like a tunnel between your device and the Internet, which encrypts every bit of information your device sends and receives from the web.
While many people have heard of this technology – most people either choose to ignore it. As a matter of fact, according to GlobalWebIndex research, only 24% of people have ever used a VPN and 32% don’t even know what a VPN is.
Image Source: www.globalwebindex.net
How to Select a Good VPN?
If you’re not quite familiar with this technology, the obvious thing would be to look at a few professional and user reviews before you select a provider. Never the less, the first thing you should look for is a paid VPN service like NordVPN that has been in the business for at last a couple of years.
Experienced providers will surely provide a reliable service and a good number of servers, in contrast to free providers, to not only bombard the users with ads every couple of minutes but also slow down your Internet connection drastically.
And if you’re looking for complete privacy, you should see if the provider you’re interested in keeps any data logs. Thankfully, numerous sites out there can provide you enough information about various VPN providers. TorrentFreak, for instance, keeps a list of “services that take your anonymity seriously.”
Final Thoughts,
Even though many apps and services promise complete encryption, the truth is, if you really want to protect every piece of information you have stored in your email account, you’ll have to start using a VPN as soon as you can.
Now, if the unfortunate happens, and your mail gets hacked before you start using a VPN, a smart thing would be to change your password immediately and notify all of your email contacts before the hacker tries to contact them and possibly scam them.
By Thomas Milva
Thomas spent his whole life in America, though his family originally came from Northern Italy four decades ago. He has been both an accomplished Information Security Analyst for a few years now and a digital writer at wefollowtech.com. Thomas is 28, lives in Baton Rouge, hates being called Thomas, and prefers Tom at any time.
How to Protect Your Email Using VPN
Reviewed by Thomas Milva on Jul 07 2017
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