Google announced on Thursday via a blog post that it is increasing the security measures linked with Gmail with a variety of new protections. The new services includes higher visibility of security warnings, standardized email encryption, state sponsored attack warnings and a lot more.
Last month, on Safer Internet Day, we saw the web giant add new security precautions to make email safer. The highlight of this update was the notification/warning that Gmail gave users when they received email that wasn’t delivered using encryption or if they were composing a message to a recipient whose email service didn’t support TLS encryption.
According to the company, this update has had a positive effect on Gmail security and since its launch, the amount of inbound mail sent over an encrypted connection increased by 25%.
To further increase the security of email, Google is bringing Safe Browsing to Gmail. This feature warns users browsing the Internet about potentially harmful websites. The service has been ported to many Google products over the years including Chrome, Android, Ads, Google Analytics and more.
The company says that now Safe Browsing will be implemented in Gmail, too. Essentially, you will now be warned about dangerous links in mail that you receive. Here’s how the warning will look like:
The Alphabet subsidiary has been warning its users about state sponsored attacks since 2012. From today, however users will be provided with full-page warning with instructions on how to stay safe.
These warnings are rare—fewer than 0.1% of users ever receive them—but they are critically important. The users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world,
the blog post reads,
Today, we’re launching a new, full-page warning with instructions about how these users can stay safe. They may see these new warnings instead of, or in addition to, the existing ones.
Google is also continuing its ongoing push to standardize email encryption. The company has already teamed up with big names like Comcast, Microsoft and Yahoo to come up with a new system for email encryption.
