Email and more generally email services are one of the easiest communication channels to intercept. The facts themselves demonstrate how unsafe it is to try to hide communications within a mailbox. Both law enforcement and cybercriminals are increasingly using this means to implant viruses, trojans and spyware designed to spy on sensitive information and data of users. Fabio Ghioni, a computer expert and former hacker, said: “Email? The most insecure way to communicate. Worse is just a public conference. The mailbox contains all of our traffic. And the provider that guarantees the service, often, also retains what we think we have deleted». Little or nothing to complain about, and if we also add that the general awareness about cybersecurity is still at low levels, for many it is a breeze to get inside the email providers and often cause huge damage”.
Who can access mailboxes?
In Italy, officially only the judicial authority is able to access or order the interception of email messages. According to estimates it seems to be a rather exploited methodology, capable over the years of reaching even the most classic telephone tapping numbers. In reality, however, particularly in the last period of digital transition, the practice of unauthorized access to mail messages is mainly connected to cyber attacks, which expands the risk to anyone. Always according to the words of Ghioni and all the computer experts in the field: “It is not uncommon that as a result of virus or trojan attacks, even external to your PC but performed on servers where you have unknowingly left the data, they lead strangers to get hold of the credentials to access your email”. Not only: “For some time now, free services have been created that allow you to know if your email address is intercepted and owned by strangers”.
Not only for judicial purposes, but especially for cybercriminals
The vast way of communicating and exchanging information over the net has given free access to the creation of viruses and Trojans even to cybercriminals. The programs often used are also the same but obviously changes the purpose and purpose that determines the use. Thanks to these malicious software it is possible to intercept all the messages sent and received, with the possibility also to trace back in time to the texts and email addresses at the providers. In a practical way “probes enabled to analyze all the traffic” are inserted into the network, or the flow of messages is duplicated. The intercepted mail ends up in a “listening area”, that is a mailbox managed by the police or in a database designed to resell sensitive data or publish them. Another tactic is to suspend access to the suspect’s e-mail. Messages to your address will continue to arrive, but they can only be viewed by those who have acquired them. A practice to which there is no defense but that can still be contained through antivirus or firewall, which do not guarantee the total impenetrability of the system.
