Heimdal Security Blog

The Best Encrypted Email Services You Need to Use

  • Cezarina Dinu
    •

    In this article, I’m going to offer you the best encrypted email services, alternatives to popular email services such as Gmail or Yahoo, which can also be secured to a certain degree, but, at the same time, mainstream providers are notorious for mishandling their users’ data or scanning inboxes for keywords to display personalized ads.

    You may be concerned that everything you do online is being watched by the government, powerful corporations, or malicious hackers.  

    In the past, we’ve shared with you what encrypted messaging apps you should use for secure communication and also walked you through the most popular free encryption software tools.

    We can all agree on the fact that a huge part of our internet activity revolves around email. And I’m sure you want that everything you share via email to stay private and only be accessed by the people you choose, and the perfect way to do this is through encrypted emails.

    Although there are multiple ways to secure your email using encryption software, they are often difficult to implement by unskilled users. Maybe at a later time, I’m going to also dig into this subject if you are interested, but for now, I’m going to look at some encrypted email service options that are easy to use.  

    So, below I’ve put together a list of user-friendly web-based encrypted email services that will help you increase your level of online anonymity.  

    You’ll notice that (almost) all of the options come from European countries. Here, the GDPR imposes strict rules on data privacy, and among many other regulations, it’s making privacy by design a legal requirement.  

    Disclaimer: While none of those encrypted email services providers will share your data with other companies/advertisers, some may present it to government entities under legal demands.

    1. ProtonMail

    ProtonMail is an encrypted email service based in Switzerland and created by scientists, engineers, and developers from CERN, with the intention of increasing your online security and privacy. They pride themselves on datacenters “located under 1000 meters of granite rock in a heavily guarded bunker which can survive a nuclear attack”.  

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    2. Tutanota  

    When it comes to the best encrypted email services, Tutanota cannot be overlooked. Tutanota is an encrypted email provider from Germany. They position themselves as a secure email services alternative to Gmail. According to their website, they are also planning to include a calendar, notes, and cloud storage in their offering – and of course, all of these features will be encrypted too.  

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    If you want to send an email to someone who’s using different encrypted email services (for instance, Gmail), you will be asked to enter a password that you will have to share with the recipient.  

    The recipient will then use it to unlock your message and be able to read it by accessing a link. The URL will remain active until you send them another confidential email.  

    This is what an email sent from a Tutanota account to someone who is using a different email service looks like.  

    3. Hushmail

    Hushmail is a secure email service based in Canada that encrypts your email communication. Simplicity is at the core of their business in order to keep their customers secure and better understand potential threats. Hushmail uses the “passphrase” naming for the log-in field which is typically referred to as “password”, in this way encouraging people to use more complex passwords – phrases, rather than words.

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    Similar to Tutanota, if your recipient is not using Hushmail, you have to check the Encrypted checkbox, and the email will be read on a secure web page.

    4. CounterMail

    Countermail is a web-based encrypted email services provider, with their data centers located in Sweden. Although their website looks quite outdated, their email security is able to handle today’s privacy threats.  

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    5. Runbox

    Headquartered in Norway, Runbox is a company that provides secure email services worldwide, offering encrypted communication and strong authentication.

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    6. Mailock

    Beyond Encryption’s Mailock helps businesses to protect sensitive data, save money, and increase operational efficiencies while also helping the environment. Compliance, data management, and operational responsibilities are all addressed by the software’s user-friendly and intuitive tools. Email encryption, identity authentication, delivery audit trail, regulatory compliance requirements, and many other capabilities are available to users.

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    7. Kolab Now

    Kolab Now offers email accounts for secure collaboration, with all the strongly protected data being stored in Switzerland. Just like any other secure encrypted email services, they will never monitor your data, sell it to third parties, or display ads.  

      

    Image source: alternativeto.net

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    8. Mailfence

    Mailfence was founded in Belgium on the principle that privacy is a right and not a feature. They focus on transparency and maintain an updated transparency report, also keeping their code open to audits.  

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    9. Posteo

    Posteo is an independent email service based in Germany focused on sustainability, security, privacy, and usability. The service is fully ad-free and they protect their users’ privacy through an innovative encryption and security model.

    Image source: posteo.de

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    10. StartMail

    StartMail is based in The Netherlands and was built by the creators of StartPage, a private search engine. This is a great platform for secure communications, that can be accessed from a webmail interface, as well as through IMAP protocol, which makes it compatible with existing email clients.

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    11. Mailbox

    Mailbox is a secure email provider based in Germany, which was founded with the purpose of becoming an alternative to other encrypted email services that depend on their customer data to obtain revenue from advertising. All created accounts include other features besides an email inbox, such as a cloud office suite to edit documents, a calendar, etc.

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    12. PreVeil

    PreVeil is an encrypted email system based on MIT computer scientists’ research on cybersecurity and applied cryptography. PreVeil adds an end-to-end encrypted mailbox to Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail without changing your email address. Unlike other encrypted email services, PreVeil protects your messages from phishing, spoofing, password, server, and admin attacks.

    PreVeil makes encryption both easy to use and manage.

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    13. Zoho Mail

    Zoho Mail is an encrypted email service developed and based out of India, with data centers distributed across the US, Europe, China, and India. Their data centers have fail-proof servers at undisclosed locations with stringent 24/7 surveillance and a biometric seal for entry. In addition to end-to-end encryption, Zoho Mail also keeps emails encrypted during transit.

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    Additional Details:

    For organization-level communications, Zoho provides the employer with extensive administrator controls. With this console, the administrator can set up spam filters, customize user-specific settings, and also set up email policies such as domain restrictions, email restrictions, access, and account permissions, based on every employee’s requirement. This way, you have total control over how each of your mailboxes works.

    14. Disroot

    Disroot.org advertises itself as a platform providing online services based on principles of freedom, privacy, federation, and decentralization. It provides secure email accounts that can be used either in your desktop client or through a web interface. What’s more, since communication between you and the mail server is encrypted with SSL, you can be sure it provides the highest possible level of privacy.

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    15. Criptext

    Criptext.com is an encrypted email service that guarantees security, privacy, and control over all your email communications. The secure email provider doesn’t have access to your emails nor does it store them in their servers.

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    16. FastMail

    Fastmail is a security-focused email service provider based in Melbourne, Australia. The company claims never to monetize the contents of user emails – as is the case with email giants such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Although it claims to only respond to Australian court orders, its servers are based in the US.

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    How you can increase your online security and privacy even more

    Hopefully, I’ve helped you choose the best encrypted email service alternative to the risky email provider you are currently using. Yet, obviously, email anonymity does not equal online security.  

    Even though some of the encrypted email services listed above also include spam filtering, virus scanning, or report phishing options, malicious attackers can always find ways to send you malware-infected links via email.  

    This is why you should also be using a proactive, threat prevention solution for your PC, which lets you click any link with confidence and allows you to be sure that your endpoint won’t get affected by malware.  

    And it scans and blocks the URLs you click both in your inbox and anywhere else on the web.   

    Email is the most common attack vector used as an entry point into an organization’s systems.

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    Here’s some great news for companies  

    We’re working hard on a brand new email module specifically designed to prevent business email compromise (BEC) attacks. We will keep you posted on the progress, so stay tuned!

    Later edit: Our email security solution that protects you against email fraud is now live! Get a free demo here.

    Are you using encrypted email services? Do you have any suggestions that we could add to the list? Let us know in the comments section below!

    This article was originally published by Bianca Soare in June 2019.

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