Encrypting emails is one way to set up a barrier between a business and potential hackers. Emails are just plain text that anyone can intercept at any given time so it is important to put in a system that guards their contents.. In the article listed here: Hackers Reveal Offers to Spy on Corporate Rivals, it discusses the attack of hackers on the security company HBGary Federal. Some of the emails that were intercepted described ways of undermining competitors/adversaries of other large institutions such as Bank of America and the US Chamber of Commerce for millions of dollars. One email that was intercepted even suggested a way in which WikiLeaks could be discredited. Now, Bank of America and the US Chamber of Commerce are under attack and under ridicule for the emails that HBGary had on their server. If they had used encryption to guard the attacks of hackers, the emails would never have been jeopardized and the reputations of both institutions would have been protected.
Picture is user created content by Richard Ecker, April 10, 2011.
Article is provided by New York Times Online February 11,2011.
