Oct 15
More times then not, there is a real concern with email security. There are so many different free email providers. There is gmail, hotmail, yahooMail, and MobileMe to name a few. Most of the time we do not think about email security. Having dealt with DOD, I have come to realize how important it is for my personal email to be secured. I will go over how to easily secure your gmail, since this is what I use on a daily bases.
**If you would like to add how to secure other free email in the comment field, please do.
As you may or may not know google is a web-based email. A lot of time you can easily do what is called “packet sniffing”. Packet sniffing is a way to view the data that is being transmitted on the local network. believe it or not I can use free programs like “Ethereal” which is a free open source distribution; to view an entire website someone is actually viewing and even collect data that user is entering and submitting on that site. One thing that you can do with gmail is use what is called IMAP. IMAP is a protocol that is used with a stand-a-lone email application, such as Mail.app, Entourage or even Outlook. Google does support IMAP and also POP (POP is widely used) besides the obvious browser base application. Well, lets say you only use a browser. Whether that browser is Safari, Firefox, IE or even Google’s Chrome by default your email is not secured. So the question come down to, “how do I secure my mail” in this case gmail? More importantly, how do I do this across the board with out changing any system setting on my Mac or PC. The answer is easy and google has made it easy. Here are the steps.
Step 1: logon to your gMail account
Step 2: At the top next to your email address click “Settings“
Step 3: Scroll to the bottom of the Setting page to the section that says “Browser Connection“
Step 4: Click the button that says “Always use https“
Step 5: Click “save settings“
That’s it. Now no matter what browser you use or on what computer, gMail will always to https://mail.google.com/. How do you know it’s secure. On Safari you will see 2 things. For one you will see the “https” at the beginning of the URL. The second is a “Lock” symbol at the top right of the browser window.
If you click on the lock you will see the CA or Signing Certificate.
Loading ...
