Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
1–10 of 20 posts
... and should I move my custom domain over to it for email?
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#2I can't say whether or not Protonmail is secure, but I'll warn you right now OP: this is a bit of a loaded question on HN. Don't expect a straight answer.
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#3ProtonMail appears to be secure so far but a couple of weeks ago there were some accusations levelled against ProtonVPN by PIA. While a lot of it was debunked but anyone pursuing the thread would be left with a bit of cynicism.
But here’s the caveat, no matter how transparent they are or how many white papers they publish, there’s no way to verify what is actually behind the hosted service. If your threat model includes a nation state then anything short of self-hosting would be risky. If your threat model involves getting away from google and trackers then it should be safe bet. For that matter even other providers like Fastmail or Zoho would be a good choice.
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#4Nothing is secure
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#5"... and should I move my custom domain over to it for email?"
What are you trying to achieve? What are your goals?
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#6The issue with ProtonMail is that they rely on having your private key and doing cryptography in a browser. That basically defeates the "end to end" aspect which, in my opinion, is a serious matter.
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#7Nothing is secure
That wasn't the question
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#8They were hacked a few months ago, though I'm not sure what it entailed. Service was down for a couple days on and off.
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#9Not sure what you mean by 'secure'. If you send a person an email with ProtonMail, it defeats all the security that ProtonMail has (unless it's to another PM email). You should only rely on yourself for security. Start using PGP and demand that all your friends/relatives use PGP. Only sign in through Tor, use different emails for different services, etc.
You can't rely on a company to provide you security or privacy.
Re: Ask HN: How secure is Protonmail really?
#10Regarding security I can't say much, if you plan to use the e-mail professionally I would recommend another provider, as it's still not possible to bulk export e-mails (after many years of asking for that feature). For me, data security includes availability, and if I can't export my e-mails periodically I'd say it's not really secure.