The average user trusts big name email providers despite multiple data breaches and in some cases trust.
NordVPN’s recent survey has shown that people mostly trust big-name email providers, such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. They believe these are privacy-focused services, and most people are not able to tell which of these providers care about privacy and security.
Out of over 2,000 respondents, 36% thought that Gmail was the most privacy-focused email provider, followed by Outlook (22%) and Yahoo (14%) – 43% did not know how to answer the question.
The same respondents were not able to identify privacy-focused email providers– such as Countermail (4.5%), ProtonMail (6.3%) and Tutanota (3.56%).
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Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo are amongst the most popular email service providers, despite that each one of them has experienced numerous hacks, data breaches or do not provide an optimum level of privacy. While some have encryption options it seems these are seldom used by consumers.
You simply need to look at a million of Gmail and Yahoo accounts being sold online for bitcoins. The account data included usernames, emails, and passwords. One of the largest online incidents involves around 500 million Yahoo emails stolen in 2014. In the most recent attack, 32 million Yahoo emails were affected.
In 2016, over a million of Microsoft Office clients (which includes Outlook) were hit with a ransomware attack, and it took Microsoft more than 24 hours to respond and to start blocking the infected attachment.
Gmail is also known as one of the most intrusive into users’ privacy with the requirements for personal information.
Marty P. Kamden, CMO of NordVPN (Virtual Private Network) , said, “The scale of the breaches regularly experienced by popular email providers raise concerns about how big companies protect their data. All NordVPN can do it to remind people to put their online security into their own hands: to use strong passwords, encrypted email providers, and VPNs.”
NordVPN suggests:
1. Switch to an encrypted email provider, such as ProtonMail - a free encrypted email service provider, offering end-to-end encryption – meaning even the provider itself cannot decrypt and read subscribers’ emails. No personal information is required to create accounts, and the basic account service is offered free of charge. Other secure email providers include Tutanota and Countermail.
2. Use strong passwords and a password manager. Perhaps the most basic requirement for any online account setup is using strong passwords and choosing different passwords for different accounts. Weak passwords make it simple for hackers to break into an account. A strong password has a minimum of 12 characters and includes a strong mix of letters, numbers, and characters. It’s not easy to remember strong passwords for each site, so it’s recommended to use a password manager, though some – such as LastPass – have also experienced security breaches. In any case, password managers are still recommended for safety and security – such as truekey.com, LastPass, and 1Password.
3. Turn on multi-factor authentication. Multi-factor authentication is a security system that will a user to access their online account after they log in with their username and password, and then require the second-step authentication: either through a fingerprint scan or by sending a code via text. Most sites, including email providers, already offer multi-factor authentication as an option.
4. Use a VPN. VPNs encrypt all traffic between a user’s computer and a VPN server, providing complete privacy and security in Internet browsing experience. The only information visible to any intruder or hacker is the connection to a VPN server and nothing else. All other information is private as the VPN’s security protocol encrypts it. NordVPN is determined to secure users’ data with features like automatic kill switch and a strict no logs policy.