Think someone may be reading your emails?

Encrypt them, and they can't

Are you sending confidential information in your email, text and instant messages? If so, you could be exposing it to a lot of peeping eyes...and they may decide to do bad things with it!

Here are some ways to encrypt your digital messages:

• In Outlook, within your message, go to File, Properties, Security Settings, and click the box for "Encrypt message contents and attachments."
  
• If you use some type of webmail, most good ones offer SSL as a security option; use it. It encrypts the messages *while they are traveling through the Internet.*
  
  However, it is not the same as encrypting the message itself. Your messages are still in clear text within the mail box storage, and when forwarded elsewhere not using an SSL-encrypted transmission method.
  
• For webmail, consider getting an add-on tool, such as Armacrypt.
  
• Another email option is Hushmail.
  
• Consider using an up-to-date version of PGP.
  
• Here's a pretty good discussion of encrypting text messages on Android devices.
  
• Here are some smartphone encryption apps to consider.

Useful TIP! Don't send any sensitive or confidential information using social network messaging systems, such as Facebook mail. While you can have the *connection* (meaning while it is traveling from you to your recipient) encrypted using SSL, it does not encrypt the message itself, leaving it in clear text within the many Facebook repositories.