Keep your privacy and information online safe | Encryption

 When we send files, direct messages or e-mails, the information needs to travel trough the internet until it arrives to its destiny. Sometimes even can cross the entire world. In such a long journey, it's possible that someone who isn't us or the receiver could intercept our valuable  data. Maybe you can think is not a big deal, I am just sending a funny message to a friend. But what's happening if you are sending an important e-mail with sensitive information? This could be more dangerous right?

So, How can we solve this problem? Well, the answer is simple and not at the same time: Encryption.

 

 But... What is encryption?

In simple words, Encryption is hides the data in a way that just the sender and receiver can see it. To do that, we use something called encoding. This process converts the a text that everyone can read or plaintext into an encrypted message or ciphertext which only the receiver and sender can decode.

To decrypt the message the authorized parties need an encryption key, which is randomly generated by an algorithm, ensuring that every key is unique. Long encrypted keys are very hard to break, making our messages very safe.

There are two types of encryption, symmetric and asymmetric. On symmetric encryption, there is just one key which is used in both process encryption and decryption. While in asymmetric, there are two keys, one for encryption and another for decryption. Where the decryption key is kept private, meanwhile the encryption key is shared publicly for anyone to use. Asymmetric is considered more secure, but symmetric is considered faster.

Why encrypt data is necessary?

There are countless reasons to think about encrypt data but there are some that pop up over the rest:

•  Privacy: We can make sure that just the senders and legit receiver are able to read the communications. Preventing attackers from intercept and read your sensible data.
•  Security: Is measure to prevent data breaches. Protects data in both, transit and rest. Also in cases of lost of devices, if the hard drives are properly encrypted will keep the data more secure. 
• Data Integrity: Helps to protect users from  attacks as "man in the middle" type.
•  Authentication: Public Key encryption, can be used to certificate that the website owner where you try to log in owns the private key  of the website. This allows users to ensure they are connected to a real website.

 How we do it?

Now we know what is encryption and why is important. But, How we can apply it to make ourselves safer? As in the previous entrance of Passwords, let's do a practical example of how to create an e-mail account using an encrypted e-mail service called ProtonMail. 

1. Visit https://protonmail.com/
2. Sign using the free e-mail option.
3. Create an e-mail account, with a strong password, as we learn on the previous blog's entry how to do it, should be easy peasy. I tested mine on the open university password checked website with a quite good result:
   
   
   
4. Set up the rest on your preference.

Once everything is ready, let's give it a try. I will send a message to one of my lectures using my brand new ProtonMail account.

For Obvious reasons I covered the email of my lecture, but you should believe me, he received the message. Also, I would like to mention that ProtonMail does not sponsor this blog in any way. Basically, is a college recommendation to use this service. But ProtonMail if you are there reading this blog, maybe  we could talk about an internship for next summer 😎.