All professionals that use email today (so pretty much 100% of them), worry about the security of their company information. Although you wouldn’t automatically think so, this is very much the case in the tech industry. So, how are IT professionals combating this very real risk? Here, we’ll detail a popular program that helps improve email privacy in the world of tech.
Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, is a popular program used to encrypt and decrypt email over the Internet, as well as authenticate messages with digital signatures and encrypted stored files. Since it was developed in 1991, it has become a de facto standard for email security. Using PGP and GPG for e-mail encryption, decryption, and digital signatures can give you the keys to digital security and keep your tech company safe from spoofing and hacking.
How Does It Work?
PGP uses a variation of the public key system. In this system, each user has an encryption key that is publicly known and a private key that is known only to that user. You encrypt a message you send to someone else using their public key. When they receive it, they decrypt it using their private key. Since encrypting an entire message can be time-consuming, PGP uses a faster encryption algorithm to encrypt the message and then uses the public key to encrypt the shorter key that was used to encrypt the entire message. Both the encrypted message and the short key are sent to the receiver who first uses the receiver's private key to decrypt the short key and then uses that key to decrypt the message.
PGP comes in two public key versions: Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Diffie-Hellman. The RSA version, for which PGP must pay a license fee to RSA, uses the IDEA algorithm to generate a short key for the entire message and RSA to encrypt the short key. The Diffie-Hellman version uses the CAST algorithm for the short key to encrypt the message and the Diffie-Hellman algorithm to encrypt the short key.
When sending digital signatures, PGP uses an efficient algorithm that generates a hash (a mathematical summary) from the user's name and other signature information. This hash code is then encrypted with the sender's private key. The receiver uses the sender's public key to decrypt the hash code. If it matches the hash code sent as the digital signature for the message, the receiver is sure that the message has arrived securely from the stated sender.
How Do You Get It?
You can download or purchase PGP and install it on your computer system. It typically contains a user interface that works with your customary email program. You may also need to register the public key that your PGP program gives you with a PGP public-key server so that people you exchange messages with will be able to find your public key. PGP freeware is available for older versions of Windows, Mac, DOS, Unix, and other operating systems.
Where Can You Use It?
PGP can be used to authenticate digital certificates and encrypt/decrypt texts, emails, files, directories, and whole disk partitions. PGP encrypted email can be exchanged with users outside the U.S if you have the correct versions of PGP at both ends. Google recently introduced an Open PGP email encryption plug-in for Chrome, while Yahoo also began offering PGP encryption for its email service.So, Pretty Good Privacy seems to actually be very good for keeping your email privacy intact. Now that you know how tech companies can improve email privacy, don’t risk a disaster in this web/cloud/everything out there age. Privacy can still be preserved!
Want even more industry tips and tricks?
Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, is a popular program used to encrypt and decrypt email over the Internet, as well as authenticate messages with digital signatures and encrypted stored files. Since it was developed in 1991, it has become a de facto standard for email security. Using PGP and GPG for e-mail encryption, decryption, and digital signatures can give you the keys to digital security and keep your tech company safe from spoofing and hacking.
How Does It Work?
PGP uses a variation of the public key system. In this system, each user has an encryption key that is publicly known and a private key that is known only to that user. You encrypt a message you send to someone else using their public key. When they receive it, they decrypt it using their private key. Since encrypting an entire message can be time-consuming, PGP uses a faster encryption algorithm to encrypt the message and then uses the public key to encrypt the shorter key that was used to encrypt the entire message. Both the encrypted message and the short key are sent to the receiver who first uses the receiver's private key to decrypt the short key and then uses that key to decrypt the message.
PGP comes in two public key versions: Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Diffie-Hellman. The RSA version, for which PGP must pay a license fee to RSA, uses the IDEA algorithm to generate a short key for the entire message and RSA to encrypt the short key. The Diffie-Hellman version uses the CAST algorithm for the short key to encrypt the message and the Diffie-Hellman algorithm to encrypt the short key.
When sending digital signatures, PGP uses an efficient algorithm that generates a hash (a mathematical summary) from the user's name and other signature information. This hash code is then encrypted with the sender's private key. The receiver uses the sender's public key to decrypt the hash code. If it matches the hash code sent as the digital signature for the message, the receiver is sure that the message has arrived securely from the stated sender.
How Do You Get It?
You can download or purchase PGP and install it on your computer system. It typically contains a user interface that works with your customary email program. You may also need to register the public key that your PGP program gives you with a PGP public-key server so that people you exchange messages with will be able to find your public key. PGP freeware is available for older versions of Windows, Mac, DOS, Unix, and other operating systems.
Where Can You Use It?
PGP can be used to authenticate digital certificates and encrypt/decrypt texts, emails, files, directories, and whole disk partitions. PGP encrypted email can be exchanged with users outside the U.S if you have the correct versions of PGP at both ends. Google recently introduced an Open PGP email encryption plug-in for Chrome, while Yahoo also began offering PGP encryption for its email service.So, Pretty Good Privacy seems to actually be very good for keeping your email privacy intact. Now that you know how tech companies can improve email privacy, don’t risk a disaster in this web/cloud/everything out there age. Privacy can still be preserved!
Want even more industry tips and tricks?