Bug in popular encryption tools PGP and S/MIME could expose e-mail

Those who use PGP or S/MIME are advised to disable them in their e-mail client for now.

If you have been encrypting your e-mails using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and S/MIME applications thinking that they are safe, think again.

Professor Sebastian Schinzel from the German Munster University of Applied Science warns that the two popular e-mail encryption tools have a bug, called Efail, that could potentially allow encrypted e-mails read as plaintext.