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Posts Tagged ‘smtp tls’

Opportunistic TLS vs Forced TLS for SMTP

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024

Email sometimes seems like magic because of how quickly messages are transmitted across the internet. While the rapid delivery speeds justify this presumption, a lot must happen for an email to reach you. Email sending relies on a protocol called the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to make its way across the internet to your recipient’s server. From there, the recipient uses another protocol, such as ActiveSync, POP3, MAPI, IMAP, or a Web-based interface, to pick it up and read it.

 

Unfortunately, these protocols aren’t always secure by default. Under its original design, emails are sent as plain text. Anyone along the email’s journey can see (and even change) their contents. This can include those in charge of the servers, the government, and even hackers that intercept the data.

 

Thankfully, engineers are aware of this glaring security hole, and they have introduced several mechanisms that can be leveraged to protect email. This article reviews how SMTP TLS works and the differences between opportunistic TLS and forced TLS.

 

secure email sending on laptop

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Tags: email encryption, Forced TLS, hipaa-compliant email, opportunistic, opportunistic TLS, secure web portal, secureline escrow, smtp, smtp tls, tls
Posted in LuxSci Library: Security and Privacy, LuxSci Library: The Technical Side of Email
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Are Replies to Encrypted Emails also Secure?

Tuesday, December 26th, 2023

Sending HIPAA-compliant emails is easy when you use an encryption solution like LuxSci. But what happens when someone replies to an encrypted message? Are the replies also secure? This is primarily a concern when using SMTP TLS as a secure means of email delivery. 

This article will explain how messages are sent securely, how replies behave, and whether they are secure and compliant. At the end, we provide some recommendations for how to balance security and usability. 

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Tags: email encryption, email reply, hipaa, reply, secure web portal, secureline, smtp tls, tls
Posted in HIPAA Email Compliance, LuxSci Library: HIPAA
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How to Secure SMTP Email Delivery with TLS

Tuesday, August 29th, 2023

Secure email sending is a priority for organizations that communicate sensitive data externally. One of the most common ways to send secure emails is with SMTP TLS. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security and is the successor of SSL (Secure Socket Layer). TLS is one of the standard ways that computers on the internet transmit information over an encrypted channel. In general, when one computer connects to another computer and uses TLS, the following happens:

  1. Computer A connects to Computer B (no security)
  2. Computer B says “Hello” (no security)
  3. Computer A says, “Let’s talk securely over TLS” (no security)
  4. Computers A and B agree on how to do this (secure)
  5. The rest of the conversation is encrypted (secure)

In particular:

  • The conversation is encrypted
  • Computer A can verify the identity of Computer B (by examining its SSL certificate, which is required for this dialog)
  • The conversation cannot be eavesdropped upon (without Computer A knowing)
  • A third party cannot modify the conversation
  • Third parties cannot inject other information into the conversation.

TLS and SSL help make the internet a more secure place. One popular way to use TLS is to secure SMTP to protect the transmission of email messages between servers.

hands on a keyboard sending secure email

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Tags: AES256, email encryption, email security, opportunistic TLS, secure, secure email, smtp, smtp tls, ssl, ssl certificate, starttls, tls
Posted in AAA Featured Articles, LuxSci Library: HIPAA, LuxSci Library: Security and Privacy, Popular Posts
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HIPAA-Compliant Secure Email: Understanding Encryption

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

Email encryption is an important topic to understand when evaluating HIPAA compliant email vendors. Encryption is an addressable standard for HIPAA compliance, but if you send sensitive information via email, encryption is the easiest way to meet the standard.

The two most common email encryption methods include SMTP TLS and Secure Portal Pick Up. This article will discuss their differences and guide users on selecting the right option for HIPAA-compliant secure email.

secure email sending

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Tags: email encryption, escrow, hipaa, hipaa compliance, hipaa-compliant email, s/mime, secure email, smtp tls, ssl, tls
Posted in HIPAA Email Compliance
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A Brief Guide to HIPAA Compliant SMTP Relaying

Friday, August 10th, 2018

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is a way in which email travels across the internet with SMTP relaying. An SMTP relay is a mail server that passes on your email message to another server that can transfer your message to the intended recipient. Email providers like Gmail own and manage SMTP servers; some allow you to connect to their servers directly while others require you to send email via their webmail applications. In the latter case, providers are also safeguarding against the risk of companies sending several emails in a short period of time and engaging in spamming.

Providers that allow direct access to their SMTP servers may or may not support SMTP relaying. ‘Support’ means that you can connect to their SMTP server to send outbound email to recipients whose email is not managed by the provider (e.g., they handle email for luxsci.net addresses but not yahoo.com).

SMTP authentication versus Secure SMTP

To avoid the risk of hackers spamming users, many email providers require authentication (e.g., via a username and password) to use their SMTP servers. Some providers may go beyond SMTP authentication and offer Secure SMTP, encrypting the communication between your computer and their server using SSL/TLS protocols. This way, the contents of your email message cannot be read along the transmission channel to the SMTP relay server.

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Tags: secure SMTP, smtp relay, SMTP relaying, smtp services, smtp tls
Posted in HIPAA Email Compliance, HIPAA Marketing, SMTP Connector
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