Hackers Beware Gmail Now Comes with Secured Encryption

Are you a Gmail user? If yes, there is a happy news waiting to be heard. Google now offers its Gmail users a way to secure their emails.

You can access Gmail through HTTPS (Hypertext transfer protocol secure) rather than the unsecured HTTP which you were using till now. To quote from the official Google Blog, “We care about your security today just as much as we did when we launched, which is why we're constantly working on improvements like the recently launched last account activity and remote sign-out. Today, we're making it even easier for you to use HTTPS to protect your mail every time you access it. We've added an option to Settings to always use HTTPS.”

Even when you manually forget to type ‘s’ in http://mail.google.com, it will automatically turn to https. What is noteworthy is that your session will remain encrypted for the entire session and not just for log-in.

Now the million dollar question- Why Google didn’t do it before?

For the unmindful like me, the HTTPS encryption was official for Google Gmail since 2008. They however did not turn it on for all, because of the well accepted fact that encryption slows down the service. After the research on security tradeoff, Google decided that it’s high time every Gmail user should turn HTTPS on. Reason? With fixed and trusted connections such as DSL lines from homes and office, there wasn’t much risk. The burgeoning of Wi-Fi connections, hackers have been using softwares to snoop on users’ online activities.

Well well, all in good time Google! I would not forget to bookmark the Gmail with the new HTTPS address. And you?