Which is more secure an SMS or a E-mail from a Gmail account?

k0409964

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Sorry not sure if this is the right place to post this but I thought it could be moved to the most appropriate place if needed.

I would like to know which is more secure a SMS message (from my iPhone) or an e-mail from a corporate e-mail account to my Gmail account, standard not encrypted etc.

Someone wants to send their banks details to me and she thought that it was safer using an SMS, is this the case?

Can someone explain to me the pros and cons, and in as much detail as posible.

Thanks guys.
 
If you're worried about sending bank details electronically then just call the person on the phone and have them tell you the bank details.
 
Im not really do worried, i have done it loads by e-mail, i just wanted to know what the difference in the 2 technologies actually was, I know an unsecured e-mail gets bounced around all sort of servers but what happens to an SMS?
 
I would say you're correct on your assumption that SMS is probably the more "secure" medium. Most network providers encrypt their communications and while it used to be super easy to intercept calls and texts, this is now no longer really the case. It's still possible, but few possess / use the equipment. Con artists won't resort to that yet, not while they've still got people falling for email scams!

Unencrypted email however is always unencrypted, hence the name :)
 
Thanks, so all SMS are encrypted, i find that interesting, what is the reason e-mail are not by default encrypted?
 
I would say you're correct on your assumption that SMS is probably the more "secure" medium. Most network providers encrypt their communications and while it used to be super easy to intercept calls and texts, this is now no longer really the case. It's still possible, but few possess / use the equipment. Con artists won't resort to that yet, not while they've still got people falling for email scams!

Unencrypted email however is always unencrypted, hence the name :)

I've seen homebrew IMSI catchers. It really doesn't take much to spoof GSM systems.

The chances of this happening are very unlikely, but I still say a phone call is more secure because no record of it is kept, unlike text messages. Even after being "deleted," texts tend to remain on the phone for quite some time.
 
I've seen homebrew IMSI catchers. It really doesn't take much to spoof GSM systems.

The chances of this happening are very unlikely, but I still say a phone call is more secure because no record of it is kept, unlike text messages. Even after being "deleted," texts tend to remain on the phone for quite some time.

I'd agree with the phone call being more secure, I was just saying that SMS is relatively secure these days - if nothing else through obscurity (which I admit isn't really "secure") but it's definitely a lot better than email. It's been a while since I looked into it but the last time I did (around 2 years ago) all the major networks were encrypting their communications and the old, easy method of cloning sims or grabbing open sims to spy on radio channels was fading fast.

That said, the only reason for phone calls being more secure is that they're not stored, if someone is spying on radio channels and has cracked the encryption, they can listen into phone calls just as easily as intercepting texts :)
 
God forbid a person should actually talk to another person these days.

Just make a phone call, write down the info and not worry about someone else seeing the information.
 
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