Google has joined hands with Zix Corporation to launch Google Apps Message Encryption (GAME), specifically designed for the Google Apps infrastructure to ensure end-to-end encryption for emails.
Earlier Google offered encryption of mails to Google mail accounts; however, with GAME it will offer encryption to mails sent to other services too such as Yahoo and Outlook.com.
The company has also published a quick start guide for GAME but doesn’t offer full support as of now as it is a third party service offered to its customers.
Rick Spurr, Chairman and CEO of Zix Corporation in a statement said, “In the midst of growing awareness regarding data threats, it’s more important than ever that companies have a reliable solution for the secure exchange of valuable customer and corporate data.”
Nigel Johnson, VP of business development at Zix said that privacy concerns might not arise due to email scanning as Google doesn’t scan emails of enterprise customers unlike emails from personal accounts.
The package available for $35 a year has options for users to configure encryption settings and routes from the dashboard. Users can also custom generate bounce messages sent to unauthorised users attempting to send encrypted emails.
The emails which are approved for encryption will be first routed through ZixCorp’s “zone,” to be encrypted by ZixPort before reaching the recipient(s). ZixPort is a security buffer the company has hosted in the cloud which would act as the gateway for all GAME customers.
Currently there are similar services offered by third parties like PGP; however, having an encryption service built-into the codes ensure more security for users. This move is a part of Google’s efforts to offer more security to its customers and notably, this is not the first time Google takes such major security measures for subscribers of its services.
