Updates to Gmail Security and Privacy (March 2016)

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Gmail Blog: Official Gmail Blog: Making email safer for you

Additional Info: 3 Things You Need to Know About Gmail’s Red Lock / Padlock alert

"Of course, it takes at least two people to send and receive an email, so it’s really important that other services take similar measures to protect your messages---not just Gmail. Unfortunately, not all email services do. And that’s why, starting this week in Gmail on the web, you’ll see two changes that highlight any affected messages:

1. If you receive a message from, or are about to send a message to, someone whose email service doesn’t support TLS encryption, you’ll see a broken lock icon in the message.
   
   
   
2. If you receive a message that can’t be authenticated, you’ll see a question mark in place of the sender’s profile photo, corporate logo, or avatar.
   

Not all affected email will necessarily be dangerous. But we encourage you to be extra careful about replying to, or clicking on links in messages that you’re not sure about. And with these updates, you’ll have the tools to make these kinds of decisions."

Originally posted 9th February 2016.

 

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Gmail Blog: Google Online Security Blog: More Encryption, More Notifications, More Email Security

"Today, we’re announcing a variety of new protections that will help keep Gmail users even safer and promote email security best practices across the Internet as a whole.

1. Safe Browsing already protects Gmail users by identifying potentially dangerous links in messages. Starting this week, Gmail users will begin to see warnings if they click these links, further extending this protection to different web browsers and email apps. The full-page warning will look like this:
   
2. 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.

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