Encrypted Email

Email has become the most widely used form of communication in the world. Millions of businesses and personal users rely on it for its speed and efficiency. Unfortunately, email is often insecure.

Encryption is the process of scrambling data so that without a secret decryption key you cannot read it. It ensures privacy by keeping information concealed from anyone who is not authorized to see it.

Encrypting email allows secure communication between the sender and recipient. The following scenario describes the email encryption process:

1. Mary wants to send an email to Andy, but doesn't want anyone else to be able to read it.
2. Mary encrypts the plaintext message with an encryption key.
3. The encrypted message, called ciphertext, is then sent to Andy.
4. Andy decrypts the email with the decryption key and is able to read the email.
5. Dan, a hacker, wants to read the email, but can't recover the plaintext without the decryption key.

For more information about encryption, please visit techtarget.com.

Steganography

Many files, including images (.jpg, .bmp, .gif) and sound or music files (.mp3, .wav) contain unused data blocks. Steganography is the method of filling these unused blocks with a hidden message. Steganography is often used to send illegal or illicit messages including communications between terrorists or cyber-criminals.

For more information about steganography, please read this ComputerWorld article.