SMTP Should Really Stand For "Simple Method To Peek"
?? Donald Allen ????
#StandWithUkraine | Multiple Times Best-selling Author. Keynote Speaker. Top 50 Global Thought Leader & Influencer on Cybersecurity, Marketing, Startups, EdTech by Thinkers360. Founder & CEO, dacybersecurity.com
"SMTP Should Really Stand For "Simple Method To Peek" by Donald Allen, FREE Cybersecurity Tips - dacybersecurity.com
To peek at our email correspondence... Here is why:
Allow yourself to travel back in time.
We are charging up our DeLorean to 88 miles per hour and warming up our flux capacitor really nicely.
Oh, wait!
The DeLorean time machine from the iconic movie "Back to the Future" first appeared in 1985, three years after SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) was accepted as a norm online.
Well, This Is Awkward...
SMTP was officially established in 1982 after being tested in the early seventies. Its main purpose was to deliver an email message quickly, but not safely.
To get the pace up, thanks to SMTP, an email doesn’t go from point A to point B.
It jumps over intermediate servers that shorten the time spent on delivery.
What makes it even worse is that there’s no real way to predict where exactly your email can stop to take a breather.
Quickness is great for business communication, but those "helping" servers are not really that helpful if they are controlled by a malicious user. By overtaking a place where the email would stop by, hackers get all the power in their hands.
You Might As Well Write A Message On A Wall
This is essentially you passing over a piece of paper through your classmates to a friend in the corner of the room.
Are you sure nobody will take a glance at it? All they have to do is just open it.
We can compare deliveries over Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to a birthday postcard you send to a relative. The postman can easily look at it from every angle, sometimes even change the actual message.
As the message travels through the vast Internet in plain text, criminals don’t even need to do anything to see what you have written there as soon as they get their hands on it.
I think we can agree that if SMTP wasn’t substituted for so long, email won’t take the place on the bench in the nearest future.
So, now I have a quick question for you:
How do you protect your emails?
Securelicious,
Donald Allen
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Anti-Piracy Specialist
4 年We need super super charging caps for Delorean Doc
#StandWithUkraine | Multiple Times Best-selling Author. Keynote Speaker. Top 50 Global Thought Leader & Influencer on Cybersecurity, Marketing, Startups, EdTech by Thinkers360. Founder & CEO, dacybersecurity.com
4 年Alexandre BLANC and Chris Roberts, we have some interesting thoughts shared here. Would you care to contribute too?
Software Engineering Manager | Software Development Manager | Ultra Runner
4 年Dennis might be a good conversation for you to contribute to and how CGM can be used to add better detection and protection to SMTP ; especially since it’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon.
Securing Technology For You
4 年If I had to pick one protocol that SEVERELY needs full haul over revamp....it's SMTP. The problem is that SMTP is so intertwined into our daily lives - changing it would presumably cost billions. SMTP is also used for SMS and MMS - which is how texts are sent/received. Changing it would require massive updates on not just email servers, but on every phone platform as well.