Do you feel that your private deals and information should be no one else's business? Keep all your online commutations secure, including the emails and messages you send with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)
Are you concerned about your online communications and would like to keep everything private? Encrypting messages between those you communicate with sets your disturbed mind at ease. And this can be done through reliable encryption protocols to prevent eavesdropping strangers from viewing your data.
Let the intended people access what you share on the internet using PGP, one of the most popular encryption methods. In this article, you'll learn what PGP is, its benefits, its solutions, how it works, and its pros and cons. So, you will have a complete guide with substantial information about PGP.
What is PGP?
PGP is an encryption method standing for "Pretty Good Privacy." It usually encrypts the messages shared between two people using a public key. The recipient, however, uses a private key to decrypt the received message through cryptographic privacy and authentication.
This system is relatively safe, and the receiver can only access the sent message through password-protected private keys. Unauthorized people cannot pry on encrypted data, and as a user, you'll have nothing to worry about.
In addition to PGP encryption abilities, it enables digital signatures to sign your encrypted message with a private key. This way, the receiver can tell if the content of the message has been changed. All letters are supposed to be intact, and if a single letter is disarrayed, the signature becomes invalidated, warning the recipient that something is wrong.
Why you need PGP
It is private, exclusive, and it's no one's business other than yours. May it be a discussion about your taxes, planning a political campaign, or even having a forbidden affair, no one has to know about it! Apart from that, it provides the following benefits:
- Protects all your sensitive information.
- It allows you to share information securely, including groups of people and departments.
- Your messages and emails cannot be penetrated by hackers or get infected by email attacks, such as Hushmailand others all using the PGP.
- You won't experience any compatibility problems.
- No one can access any of your deleted files or sensitive data.
- It is easy and straightforward to use.
- With PGP, there is absolute acuity because information cannot be modified in transit.
In short, there are a lot of advantages to using PGP to secure your sensitive data. The mentioned are just a few.
Different PGP solutions
There are several approaches to set up a PGP depending on why you need it and how often you implement it. Below are some of the solutions that PGP brings to your business or home networks.
- Outlook with PGP4o- with this solution, Windows users can seamlessly integrate Outlook 2010-2016. It offers a user-friendly PGP add-on and handles all Outlook emails very well.
- Apple Mail, with GPGTools-Mac users, uses PGP encryption through GPGTools, which covers all areas of your Mac system, including key management tasks.
- ProtonMail- This email provides automatically implements PGP encryption for all the messages you send via a web portal. The good thing about ProtonMail is that you don't have to reset your entire system every time you transmit an encrypted email.
- Android and FairEmail- with FairEmail, you can extend PGP encryption to your Android phone. It's the simplest solution you can ever get with PGP secure method and allows you to encrypt what you want.
How PGP works?
Pretty Good Privacy encrypts email and message content so that only the intended parties can view it. Typically, you need to install a program on your computer to work with an email client such as Outlook or Gmail, where all the sent emails go through PGP encryption.
Since it can be tiresome to encrypt an entire message, PGP uses an algorithm, a much faster encryption technique. The algorithm simplifies the process by encrypting the message and then using the public key encrypts the shorter key that encrypted the entire message.
After that, the sender transmits the short key and the encrypted message to the recipient, who then decrypts the two using a private key. In general, the algorithm supports data compression, combination of hashing, symmetric-key cryptography, and public-key cryptography.
If you are wondering how to get PGP, you'll get it by downloading or purchasing it and installing it on your laptop/computer. Though the freeware was previously available for older versions of Windows, DOS, Mac, UNIX, and other operating systems, Symantec ended it. What you can find are the non-proprietary editions of the tech.
Pros and cons of Pretty Good Privacy
| Pros | Cons |
| · Extremely secure and unbreakable · Improves cloud security · Easy to learn and use | · you'll require a software · No recovery once deleted |
Final thoughts
If you are looking to secure your sensitive data, PGP is a good idea because there are no chances of being attacked by hackers. Your emails and messages are safe as all the content that you send is encrypted, and the recipients can easily access the public key to decrypt that message. Although you'll be required to get the software, Pretty Good Privacy comes with loads of benefits depending on the kind of solutions you are looking for.