We all use email for business and personal matters. Some people have corporate email addresses, some use public services. But how secure are they? Swiss company High-Tech Bridge launched a free service that can be used to check security of your email provider.
We did not test the web interface for these providers. Instead we looked at SMTP and POP3 protocols which are used by email clients and your phones or tablets. These protocols are extremely important for security of your correspondence, since people use their phones and tables in untrusted networks, such as public Wi-Fi, cellular network, etc.
We have made a brief review of the most popular email services and here are the results:
| Service | Server Address | Grade |
| Czech Republic | ||
| Seznam SMTP (smtp.seznam.cz:465) | 77.75.78.48 | A+ |
| Seznam POP (pop.seznam.cz:995) | 77.75.76.46 | A- |
| Centrum.cz SMTP | N/A | N/A |
| Centrum.cz POP (pop.centrum.cz:995) | 46.255.231.8 | B- |
| Email.cz SMTP (smtp.email.cz:465) | 77.75.78.48 | A- |
| Email.cz POP (pop.email.cz:995) | 77.75.78.51 | A- |
| Worldwide | ||
| GMail SMTP (smtp.gmail.com:465) | 74.125.141.109 | B |
| GMail POP (pop.gmail.com:995) | 74.125.141.108 | A- |
| Yahoo! SMTP (smtp.mail.yahoo.com:465) | 98.139.211.125 | B |
| Yahoo! POP (pop.mail.yahoo.com:995) | 98.139.214.28 | B |
| Outlook SMTP (smtp.outlook.com:465) | 132.245.72.98 | B+ |
| Outlook POP (pop.outlook.com:995) | 40.96.5.66 | B+ |
| Germany | ||
| Web.de SMTP (smtp.web.de:587) | 213.165.67.108 | B+ |
| Web.de POP (pop3.web.de:995) | 212.227.17.161 | C+ |
| Mail.de SMTP (smtp.mail.de:587) | 213.128.151.213 | B |
| Mail.de POP (pop3.mail.de:995) | 213.128.151.209 | A- |
| Russian Federation | ||
| Yandex SMTP (smtp.yandex.ru:465) | 87.250.250.38 | B |
| Yandex POP (pop.yandex.ru:995) | 87.250.251.37 | F |
| Mail.ru SMTP (smtp.mail.ru:465) | 94.100.180.160 | F |
| Mail.ru POP (pop.mail.ru:995) | 217.69.139.74 | F |
| Rambler SMTP (smtp.rambler.ru:465) | 81.19.77.167 | B+ |
| Rambler POP (pop.rambler.ru:995) | 81.19.77.162 | F |
As you can see, Seznam is the most secure email provider of all tested. Czech providers show in general good results, so their users can sleep tight at night.
At the same time, Russian Email providers are troubled with vulnerabilities in SSL implementations.
You can check your own provider or your corporate email server here: https://www.htbridge.com/ssl/
