Have you ever stopped to think that your email is being read by someone other than your recipient? If you’re like me, you’ve already fired off about 50 emails today without a second thought. Taking email encryption for granted is in our nature. When you have to send so many emails in a given day, the idea that your private messages aren’t shielded from other parties is the last thing on your mind. You’re too fixated on meeting your deadlines and getting information across at the speed-of-thought. Your email has to be protected, because quite frankly, you don’t have the time to verify.

But as you are writing your next email, and reading this blog, take about two minutes to think about the issue a little harder. The fact is, encryption is a big deal and there may be leaks in your email.

As recently as a month ago, we found out that the National Security Agency (NSA) has had access to emails that have been sent over Gmail, Hotmail, and other email services. Think about the last two-way conversation you had in which you didn’t want anybody but that person to know what was being said. Now, just imagine that the NSA has read over that same email about a dozen times. Not so far-fetched a concept, right?

The government itself has certainly been paying close attention to where their email is going. According to eWEEK, the federal government identified email as the top culprit for data leaks. In a survey conducted by MeriTalk, 51 percent of information security professionals see email encryption as being a critical problem for federal agencies in the next five years.

Obviously these agencies are highly concerned about privileged and sensitive information leaving their premises. The irony is that the respondents were also concerned that encryption is making it harder to detect when valuable data is leaving. In that regard, encryption can be used to hide information that is being stolen or extracted for another purpose.

Regardless of those potential blips on the radar screen, email encryption is essential. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s too much work. Yes, there is definitely a learning curve involved when applying and managing public and private keys. However, any other method to having “secure email” is simply not going to cut it. You might as well not even bother sending emails if you don’t have encryption in place.

So what are some of the steps to ensure that your email isn’t being compromised? We have some thoughts and we’d love to hear your thoughts too