Here, we discuss what is a PGP email, how to encrypt and decrypt a PGP email, and much more regarding PGP data encryption. PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy and even though it has pretty good in its name, PGP encryption is much more than being just pretty good. Essentially, PGP data encryption is a security program you can use to send a PGP email or encrypt and decrypt email, as well as to authenticate your emails, send PGP messages, and PGP files through digital signatures.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption was developed and designed back in 1991 by Paul Zimmermann. At the time, PGP encryption software was operated and owned by PGP Corporation. In 2010, the rights to PGP software were bought by Symantec. For hackers and cybercriminals, email is one of the prime hacking or attack methods as those who know how can easily fake messages using individuals’ identities and names.

PGP data encryption was designed and developed to solve these messaging security issues. Even though PGP encryption is used to encrypt files and text messages, it is mostly used as a way of enhancing the security and privacy of email by encrypting the content. Essentially, PGP emails are encrypted emails that nobody from the outside can access. In other words, PGP emails can only be accessed and viewed by the sender and the intended recipient.

PGP encryption software was the very first public cryptography tool available to everyone for free. Back in the day when it just appeared on the scene, it was primarily used to enable individuals to communicate safely and securely on computer servers. Later, PGP turned into the de facto email security and privacy standard and has been widely used not only by organizations but also by individuals who value their safety.

How PGP Email is Encrypted?

Just like many other data encryption technologies out there, PGP encryption relies on a combination of different hashing, data compression, and of course, powerful cryptography techniques. In other words, PGP emails are emails that have been compressed, hashed, and encrypted. PGP encryption is most similar to Kerberos, SSL (Secure Socket Layer), and SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol. Kerberos is responsible for authenticating data, Secure File Transfer Protocol secured data as it travels, and Secure Socket Layer secures and protects websites.

PGP emails arealways encrypted with the public key and in the PGP encryption system, every individual user has his or her unique public encryption key and this is key is shared among them. A PGP email also relies on a private key and private keys are never shared among users. Essentially, every user has a private key they keep secret and public encryption keys they share. An email is encrypted when a sender shares his or her public key. A PGP email is decrypted when the intended recipient accesses the email using his or her private key.

This means that a PGP email relies on both public-key and private-key cryptography and uses both asymmetric and symmetric data encryption technology to protect the content of emails as they travel from senders to recipients across networks. Every PGP email is protected and secured within three major steps:

PGP software or tool generated a one-time, random public key or encryption algorithm and this randomly generated algorithm protects PGP emails as it is always a completely random encryption session key nobody can guess

In the second step, the randomly generated session key or public key is encrypted using the PGP email’s recipient’s unique public key. Since session keys are also encrypted, a PGP email is protected during its transmission. The recipient of a PGP email shares his or her public key with individuals they want to get PGP-encrypted emails from.

The sender of a PGP email submits his or her randomly generated session key and the recipient of a PGP email uses his or her private encryption key to decrypt a PGP email or message.

PGP Email – Hashing, Data Compression, and Cryptography

Encrypting long emails or messages can take a while but with PGP encryption, the process is much faster and it relies on a faster encryption algorithm that includes data compression techniques. Since data techniques are used, encryption messages and emails save not only transmission time but also some space on your device. PGP encryption also fortifies cryptographic security. It is also worth mentioning that the public encryption key encrypts the shorter variant of the full emails and messages that have been PGP encrypted.

More specifically, the recipient of a PGP email gets both of them and uses his or her private key to access the shorter session key and finally decrypt the full PGP email or message version with all content included. In addition to data compression techniques, PGP encryption also relies on other efficient algorithms which create mathematical summaries also called a hash and these mathematical summaries are required to share digital signatures.

How to Send PGP Emails?

There are two major versions of PGP that rely on public-key cryptography including RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) and Diffie-Hellman. RSA relies on the IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm. Individuals create and share public keys and their public keys are needed in order to decode messages. RSA is extremely safe and almost unbreakable but encrypting messages using this encryption technology is very slow and it is not widely used for encrypting emails.

The Diffie-Hellman PGP version encrypts messages and emails with a short key with the CAST algorithm. It also easily creates hash codes thanks to the SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm). To send a PGP email, you can use an excellent variety of PGP encryption software and tools out there and one of these is GNU Privacy Guard. You can also use Hushmail that is extremely safe and very easy to set up and get started. Other great options for sending your first PGP email include Claws Mail, EverDesk, eM Client, and The Bat that works on Windows devices.

If you are using a macOS device, you can send PGP emails with Apple Mail GPGTools, Canary Mail, Mutt, Enigmail, and Thunderbird. There are also PGP encryption tools for Android and iOS devices you can use to send your first PGP email such as iPGMail, PGPro, Safe Easy Privacy, R2Mail2, K-9 Mail OpenKeyChain, and FairEmail.

In this PGP message article, we discuss PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), how it works, and PGP security. We also discuss how to create a PGP-encrypted message using different tools and apps out there. PGP is a powerful data encryption program crafted by Phil Zimmermann and Symantec over thirty years ago in 1991. This encryption program guaranteed authentication and cryptographic privacy for various kinds of online communication.

Essentially, Pretty Good Privacy encryption programs are used for encrypting and decrypting emails, texts, disk partitions, and files with the main goal of increasing the overall security of various online communication channels. PGP text messages are messages that have been encrypted with a PGP data encryption program. The popularity of Pretty Good Privacy is based on two crucial factors and one of them is the system’s freeware encryption platform.

The second factor is related to Pretty Good Privacy’s encryption technology. More specifically, PGP relies on both public-key and symmetric encryption. This means that you can send a PGP message to someone you have never communicated with before without sharing private encryption keys. PGP and other popular, powerful encryption systems such as SSL encryption that secures most websites.

How PGP Message is Encrypted?

Many of these encryption systems just like PGP rely on a combination of two different types of data encryption including public-key and symmetric encryption. In symmetric data encryption, only one secret key is required to encrypt text messages and files and to decrypt them. The communicating entities using this type of data encryption have to exchange the secret key in order to decrypt messages.

In asymmetric encryption, one private and one public key are used for encrypting and decrypting and this is the biggest difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption is also called public-key cryptography as public keys are used alongside private keys. PGP text messages rely on both public-key cryptography and symmetric encryption to add that extra layer of securing to text messages, files, and emails shared online.

The main question is, how PGP message is encrypted and decrypted. To understand how a PGP message is encrypted and decrypted, let’s look at one example. There is a user A and he or she wants to communicate with a user B by sending a PGP-encrypted message. User B will generate a private and public key. User B will share the public key with user A and save the generated private key. User A will use the public key to create a PGP message or to encrypt his or her message. User A will then send this PGP message and User B relies on his or her private key to decrypt this PGP message.

PGP Message – Encryption and Decryption

There are a bunch of PGP encryption tools and apps and most of these work the same as they rely on the same PGP encryption technology. PGP encryption message, email, or file always starts with Pretty Good Privacy generating a session key relying on one of two crucial algorithms. This session key is a massive sequence of randomly generated numbers and it is used just once. The session key is also encrypted using the intended recipient’s public key.

The public key used is tied to an individual’s identity and multiple people can use the same public key to send a PGP message to the recipient. Using his or her private key, the intended recipient of a PGP message decrypts it and accesses the content of the message. Essentially, PGP data encryption combines the security of asymmetric cryptography with the efficiency of symmetric encryption since encryption keys get encrypted as well.

Now, you may wonder why encryption keys get encrypted as well and the answer is quite logical. Public key cryptography or asymmetric encryption where the recipient and the sender use the same key is much slower when compared to symmetric encryption. Moreover, in symmetric encryption, senders must share encryption keys with the intended recipient in the form of plain text and this is not the safest option. This is why before sending a PGP message, symmetric keys (used by both sender and recipient) are encrypted using the public-key encryption technology (asymmetric encryption).

PGP Encrypt and Decrypt Messages

To send a PGP message, there are several steps to follow. As mentioned in the previous section, a PGP message uses two different types of encryption keys to encrypt and decrypt text messages including the private and the public key. To encrypt, the public is required and this encryption key is shared with the sender. The private key is also kept secret and is not shared with the sender. The private key is required to decrypt a PGP message.

To send a PGP-encrypted message, you need PGP encryption software that will assist you with encrypting your text message. There are many different PGP tools you can use to encrypt your text messages such as OpenPGP, Gpg4win, and GNU Privacy Guard. Great free PGP encryption tools for Windows are pfPgpEncryptor, Kleopatra, Go Anywhere OpenPGP Studio, PGPTool, and VeraCrypt.

You need to download one of this software to get started. One of the simplest is most certainly Gpg4win, so if you do not know much about PGP encryption, we recommend you get this tool. Once you have downloaded and installed Gpg4win or some other PGP encryption software, open it and click on the Generate Key Now button.

You can also generate new encryption keys by heading to the Keys section and clicking on the New Key button. You will be asked to provide your name and you can use your real name or fake. You will be asked to provide your email and you do not have to use your actual email address. Once done, you proceed to create a backup of your encryption key. This is an optional step. If you create a backup of your key, you will be asked to set a password and set a location.

Once you have generated your new encryption key-pair, right-click on it and choose Copy and your newly generated public key will appear in your clipboard. You can send this public key to anyone and receive a PGP-encrypted message. No matter what you do, make sure you never share your private key with anyone. If you will be sending a PGP-encrypted text message, you need his or her public key to get started. Once you have the key, you save it before importing it to your PGP encryption software.

Access the key by clicking on Clipboard. In the text area, type your text message and press the Encrypt button. Once here, click on the public key of the individual you want to send a PGP message. On the following pop-up, click yes and you have successfully encrypted your message. To decrypt a PGP message, the message must be encrypted with your unique public key. Once you have your PGP-encrypted message, open your clipboard and paste the message there. Choose decrypt and provide the password you have set up and the message has been decrypted.