Proton Mail. Is it really Secure? Probably not.

[Robert Upndown]

With the recent passing of new laws and regulations in the States, a great number of SP's have jumped to using Proton Mail thinking it is secure and protects them from the US. it is certainly an alternative, but it is NOT as Secure as you might think, There are pitfalls (See Below). A significant number of sources mention that simply having a Proton Mail account will draw attention by the authorities. You may actually be a target simply by having a Proton Mail account. It may prove to be more secure to use a mainstream mail service for anonymity, but there are also privacy pitfalls to mainstream providers. Fact of the matter is, privacy is becoming less and less in today's world.

Move to Proton Mail if you want to, but do it after weighing the pros and cons of doing so.
There really is no absolute secure email at this level. If you are targeted for whatever reason, your information is NOT secure.

https://securitygladiators.com/protonmail/

Some excerpts from the above article

ProtonMail is an email service that is a lot more secure than many regular online webmail services.

So they can’t really use the user’s data to sell it to third-party companies and advertisers.

With that said, there is no doubt about the fact that security services along with the NSA will already have the infrastructure they need to monitor ProtonMail accounts very vigorously.

Regardless, ProtonMail continues to claim that the company provides anonymous email services.

Our research for this ProtonMail tells us that you should take that claim with a rather large pinch of salt.

Pros
ProtonMail provides way more security than your regular email service provider
The company does not engage in spying on its users to use their data for advertising campaigns.
intuitive interface
Great interface
Fully open source
Features that enable sending encrypted email messages to other non-ProtonMail users
It has self-destruct email messages
Useful premium subscription options such as custom domain names

Cons
Research shows that ProtonMail isn’t as secure as some of the other proper PGP email services
The genuine benefits of an email service provider operating out of Switzerland are still debatable.
The company requires SMS verification when users try to register which can be a pain.
You can avoid that by upgrading to ProtonMail premium account though.
ProtonMail isn’t anonymous even though it advertises as such
Email Privacy Test results did not blow us away
ProtonMail users will attract more attention than normal email users but that isn’t really ProtonMail’s fault.
Just a point that users need to consider.

Furthermore, ProtonMail will probably not have enough in terms of security to ward off any NSA attacks.

Apart from that, ProtonMail users should know that NSA will, in all likelihood, target ProtonMail users just because they are ProtonMail users.

But for most other purposes ProtonMail does provide a high enough level of online privacy.

But if you are looking for genuine anonymity then don’t expect that from ProtonMail.

Additionally, if the user is up to something very seriously illegal, then too ProtonMail won’t or rather can’t protect that user.

Comments?

 

[VanessainVictoria]

So what email do you suggest we use?

 

[Robert Upndown]

So what email do you suggest we use?

There are pitfalls to all of them. Sometimes it is better to hide with the masses than hide with the ones that suggest they may be hiding from something.

Whatever email or device you use to correspnd, use for appointments only. Don't use it for any other reason than to talk to clients. Don't use it to buy anything, reserve anything, book a flight, hotel whatever. KISS (Keep it simple stupid)

Purge your devices of all emails or anything that points to your profession when travelling. Best to set the devices back to factory settings, or get clean devices to travel with.

Don't use the same pic on Twitter that you use on Facebook. Follow simple security procedures. Do not expose yourself. Act as if you are being watched at all times and NEVER think any email communication is anonymous or private.

 

[MissingOne]

... Act as if you are being watched at all times ...

That pretty much says it. And yet, here I am on PERB.

 

[badbadboy]

All good points and thanks for posting the article. I also jumped on the protonmail bandwagon thinking it would be safe and secure. Then I realized if I book a hotel with my biz email address and I converse with an SP via email, all the IP's would match if the INS had the tools to look at all my data.

Now I'm of the mind that if I cross the border all electronic devices would be pristine and without any connection to this industry.

 

[Abbott_]

That pretty much says it. And yet, here I am on PERB.

Think of it as enriching your legacy :attention:

 

[treveller]

"A significant number of sources mention that simply having a Proton Mail account will draw attention by the authorities."
There is an easy solution for this one. Everyone gets an account and the government won't know where to start.

The criticisms of Proton Mail are remarkably vague. The only substantial worry I would have would be that the whole system had been created by the NSA but in that case they would never waste the systems reputation on taking down some guy visiting his favorite pro.

 

[badbadboy]

Cyber attacked

Protonmail has basically been offline since Friday afternoon.


Their email to users indicated a DDos attack has been ongoing for a few days.

While ProtonMail defends against DDoS and other cyber attacks on a daily basis, the attacks we faced this week posed a particularly difficult challenge because it is a new type of DDoS from a previous unknown network of compromised devices.

 

[Robert Upndown]

You can check their Twitter feed for updates @ProtonMail

Bob