Gmail users get a warning for email over unencrypted connections

Google will warn users of its Gmail service when e-mails arrive that are sent via unencrypted connections. That decision was made following an investigation that showed that malicious parties are trying to intercept e-mail traffic.

In recent years, Google has conducted research into email encryption in collaboration with American scientists. The company reports this on its security blog. The investigation revealed, among other things, that groups are active that try to intercept e-mail traffic with fake DNS servers in order to send it to unsecured servers. For example, they attempt to undermine the sending of messages via encrypted connections, in order to subsequently be able to intercept the content. Based on that, Google has decided that it will issue warnings if incoming e-mail has come through servers with unencrypted connections.

In the coming months, the warnings should start appearing among Gmail users. The warnings, of which it is still unclear what exactly they will look like, only apply to e-mail traffic with servers from e-mail providers other than Gmail; traffic between Google’s mail servers is encrypted by default. According to the internet giant, the number of emails sent over unencrypted connections between Gmail and non-Gmail users has dropped significantly in recent years.

The research Google refers to was conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois. They detailed their findings in a paper that has been put online.