From security perspective, should I have more than one email address?
When people talk about secure email practices they often bring up AnonAddy, Protonmail, using multiple email accounts depending on activity, hosting your own domain address, etc. Such strategies are common among people who care deeply about privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity. It makes sense to me. I want to know if any of this is useful if I only care about security.
My goal: to prevent others from authorizing on my behalf anywhere online.
My current situation:
- I have one email account that handles everything. It is linked to my bank accounts, social media accounts, medical and government services, videogame profiles, I use it to communicate with friends and family, I use it when I job hunt, etc.
- My job doesn't use email communication, so I don't have that.
- I use Gmail and secure my account with a strong password and 2FA.
- I use Bitwarden, randomize passwords, and use unique logins for each service.
- I am a normal nameless civilian not involved in any risky activity, and do not own cryptocurrency.
My question: What are the issues, if any, with this simple email "architecture" as it pertains to my online security, and how could these issues be addressed. Essentially, I want to know if any realistic threats exist that my approach doesn't yet account for.
[This post is about threat modeling, and I have read the rules]
Posted Jan 17, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC
Using different email addresses or an alias service like SimpleLogin or AnonAddy 100% improves your security on top of your privacy.
Using a different email/alias on each service means that your attacker will have a much harder time trying to attack you, as they won't know what email address you use for the service, and even if they do find it out, its a secluded instance and they will still have no idea what your real email address is or what other services you use, your real name or info, etc.
Its also greatly beneficial for situations like data breaches. Now, if your data is compromised, it won't tie back to you or effect your personal real email/accounts, but just a single unique alternate burner email address/alias, which the attacker can't really do much with.
Overall, I recommend nearly everyone use an email alias service like SimpleLogin or AnonAddy. There's really no downside to doing so imo, and it adds major security and privacy benefits.
Except there is? Simplogin and alternatives (like anonaddy) can read all your emails, unless they are sent encrypted (say via gpg) by the sender. You have to put all trust in the particular email forwarding company to not do anything malicious. This simple conundrum is extremely important to mention when dealing with any sort of email forwarding services, so people can make better decisions.
That is why I never recommend people use any mail forwarding service for bank accounts/anything sensitive, unless they go the selfhosting route (simplelogin supports this) or they know what they are doing.
Thanks!!! Didn't know that!!!
Don't you have to put all your trust in the email service company anyway?
(copypasting from another comment of mine) You signup for an email from a provider you trust, knowing that they can read and access your data. Why would you signup/use from a provider you don't trust?
The point is using an email forwarder makes you trust two parties instead of one. The first party is already trusted since YOU decided to use them. And even if you trust the second party, unlike gmail a behemoth run by google, as privacy invasive as they maybe their security is the very best. You may trust the second party to not be malicious but if they are lax in security you might as well make your emails public.
At that point make and use your own email server, because by your words you're still gonna have to trust your original email service provider to not check your emails. Especially if it's gmail or outlook.
Your comment makes no sense. You signup for an email from a provider you trust, knowing that they can read and access your data. Why would you signup/use from a provider you don't trust?
The point is using an email forwarder makes you trust two parties instead of one. The first party is already trusted since YOU decided to use them. And even if you trust the second party, unlike gmail a behemoth run by google, as privacy invasive as they maybe their security is the very best. You may trust the second party to not be malicious but if they are lax in security you might as well make your emails public.
I think you may be misunderstanding what alias services actually protect. Yes they can read your emails, they don’t have an interest to do so, but yes they can read them. Just how he majority of “encrypted” email services could also potentially read your emails since they initially receive all your incoming mail as unencrypted, and encrypt it on their servers.
But the whole point of alias services is to protect your email from being breached. It’s designed to allow you to generate a unique email for every service you use, to avoid the instance of a breach leaking your actual email. It also helps isolate spam, as if one provider ends up selling your data, or sending you way too much spam, you can always disable the alias.
It’s not a 100% bulletproof solution, nothing is. But it’s surely better than using the same email for everything, or trying to make 50 different email account logins.
And the self hosted solution, or even using a custom domain for aliases defeats the entire purpose of having aliases. The whole point is to blend in and not seem unique. Using the domains owned by SimpleLogin or AnonAddy will group you with thousands and thousands of other users, making is basically impossible to point you out. If you use a custom domain and end up in a breach, it won’t take long to discover that you own that domain and anytime that domain shows up in a breach, it’s from you.
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I never claimed any "encrypted" email service cannot read your emails. You just assumed that.
I know how they work but thanks.
Are you half asleep? That was my entire point against the parent comment who claimed simplelogin/Anonaddy was a silver bullet with no downsides.
Thats for end users for decide whether incorporating a third party who can access your data is worth it in their use case. In the context of OP, this is way out of scope.
No they do not.
If Alice uses a simplelogin alias and bob uses a custom domain alias, during a breach both will reveal the same amount of info. Infact bob will have the advantage in case of law enforcement involvement since with alice the law can simply force simplelogin to the deliver the details (without bob/alice knowing), however with bob managing his own server, owns his data. Bob is also smart and uses njalla and xmr for his domain so if his domain provider is cracked down, they literally won't have anything on him. This isn't browser-fingerpriting, seeming unique grants the attacker nothing.
you know major email providers (gmail, outlook, protonmail) provide aliasing right? Them being paid being the only downside. Surely if you want to "blend in", using your own email provider's aliasing feature is a better choice? By your own logic they will group you with billion other addresses.
You do not have to provide any identifying info if you use certain domain registrars (eg njalla). Thats how a lot of piracy/problematic sites stay afloat. If you want to be truly paranoid use njalla with monero and give false details to njalla, making it nearly impossible to link anything back at you.
Nothing in your reply invalidates or refutes my comment. You assume I know nothing about aliasing, then go on to summarize feature-set of email alises, then further go on to insinuate simplelogin is better than selfhosting, with wrong information. Most of your arguments are filled with assumptions and half truths. Email aliasing is very much a good method of gaining privacy however you have to know what goes on under the hood to get a decent idea for your use case. A false sense of security/privacy should not be encouraged.
But what can an attacker do with my real email address? Intuitively, I agree that it seems like I compromise security, make it "that much easier" for them. However, I can't think of any scenario where I get screwed because I did not use email aliases, but had good security measures otherwise.
Perhaps I can see it acting as an extra layer of protection for when I inevitably mess up somewhere else, creating a real opportunity for attack... ?
People can use emails to basically run a background check on you. Though this also applies to phone number, name, and other identifiers of you.
Ok, and how does this relate to my security?
Gather intelligence and nothing else (provided you have strong passwords and 2fa). It is trivial to find out which sites/services you signed up to via your email. And depending upon the services they may get access to more info like your usernames. Another thing they can do is use sites like this to find out if your email is included in any data breaches/leaks. And depending on the attacker they can use this info to their advantage.
So the answer to "what realistic security threats exist that my email architecture doesn't account for" is... none?