Google has announced a new feature aimed at enhancing email security for enterprise users by allowing them to send end-to-end encrypted emails via Gmail. This announcement, made on Wednesday, details the company’s implementation of the Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) protocol, which simplifies encrypted email transmission for users across various email platforms. Google indicated that this feature will be beneficial for businesses that lack extensive IT resources, enabling them to send encrypted emails with ease.
Gmail Is Making It Easier to Send Encrypted Emails
In a blog post, the tech giant elaborated on this new privacy feature tailored for its email service. With the update, eligible users will be able to send end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) emails to any recipient, regardless of their email platform, by following a few straightforward steps. Importantly, this encryption process involves keys controlled by the users themselves, ensuring that these keys remain inaccessible to Google servers, thereby enhancing privacy and security.
The company highlighted that implementing this encryption capability requires minimal effort from IT teams and end users, with most of the work being carried out by Google. Currently, the feature is being rolled out in phases as part of a beta program. Initially, enterprise users will only be able to send encrypted emails to other Gmail users within their organization. However, in the coming weeks, Google plans to extend this functionality to allow encrypted emails to be sent to users on all email clients.
For recipients using Gmail, the email will be automatically decrypted in their inbox without any necessary action on their part. Conversely, if the recipient uses a different email service, they will receive an invitation from Google to access the email through a guest Google Workspace account within a secure environment.
In addition to the E2EE email protection, Google is introducing several other security enhancements within Gmail. These updates include a default mode for E2EE messages that IT administrators can set, classification labels that help users identify email sensitivity, and a data loss prevention (DLP) tool that enables automatic application of labels and actions based on those labels.
