While communications between Gmail accounts use HTTPS connections by default, the firm is looking into ways to develop in-product warnings for Gmail users to alert them when they receive messages from an unencrypted connection, according to a Nov. 12 blog post.
The number of unencrypted emails that Gmail received from non-Gmail users increased from 33 percent to 61 percent between December 2013 and October 2015, according to a multi-year study conducted by Google, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois to measure the evolution of email security.
The new feature will also address threats posed by regions of the internet that actively prevent message encryption by tampering with SSL connection requests and malicious DNS servers, which publish bogus routing information to email servers looking for Gmail, the post said.