Popular encrypted e-mail standards are unsafe: researchers

FILE PHOTO: WhatsApp and Facebook messenger icons are seen on an iPhone in Manchester , Britain March 27, 2017. REUTERS/Phil Noble -/File Photo

FRANKFURT: European researchers have found that the popular PGP and S/MIME e-mail encryption standards are vulnerable to being hacked and they urge users to disable and uninstall them immediately.

University researchers from Muenster and Bochum in Germany, and Leuven in Belgium, discovered the flaws in the encryption methods that can be used with popular e-mail applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail.