We are always on the look out to keep our clients protected from hackers and digital thieves and were pleasantly surprised while recently using Virtru’s encrypted email service.

I personally use to send encrypted messages using the old PGP (“Pretty Good Privacy”) process, but I would never have recommended that service for the average user. Since those days, we have been on the look out for a service that actually does protect your messages as well it simple enough to recommend for my mother to use.

Virtru has truly made it simple for anyone to send and receive encrypted email messages. But if you are a current G-Suite/Google Apps user, then things could not get simply with their browser plugin.

I recently tried out their free service while sending over my personal tax info to my accountant. Many people don’t realize that anything you send in a normal email is transmitted via plain text and easily can be scanned as it jumps across the Internet to multiple servers.

An accountant’s office was recently hit with a hack where the digital thieves saw bank account forms being emailed back and forth between clients and the office. They were able to intercept the forms and divert the refund funds to their own bank account. One client’s refund was an excess of $5,000, so thieves know it is worth the try.

Virtru gets around this by never sending the email’s contents across the Internet as plain text. Although it appears seems less when you use their browser plugin, you are actually uploading the contents of the message including your attachments to their secure servers over an encrypted channel.

Then, the recipient has to prove they have access to that email by receiving a momentary code via a link sent to them. They then can see the message an any contents where they can also securely download them to their computer. Sounds complicated, but the plugin, make it all a snap with Google Apps users having all that down automatically for them.

Sending an encrypted email is just a click away and a bright blue bar in your compose box will immediately tell you if you are sending an encrypted message.

One of the other nice features is the ability to delete the message from your side.

Who are the ideal candidates for this type of protection? Anyone dealing with banking and identity information such as Social Security numbers.

• Brokers
• Accountants
• Lawyers
• Medical Offices/Processors
• Debt Collectors

If you need help getting it set-up, Vital Help Desk can help. We are G-Suite Resellers and definitely step you through the process.

If you like to learn more about Virtru, check out their data-protection services here.