Can emails be intercepted?

Question

I'm hoping to email an application that contains sensitive information(like SSN) as an attachment over the email. Let's say that neither (the sender and the receiver's) email password was ever compromised. Are there other ways for my attachment to get intercepted or stole?

Answer 1

Well, e mails are from a kinder, gentler time, and basically plain text. Unless you have encryption between every point between the you and your recipient, or the e mail itself is encrypted, its pretty trivial to sniff traffic and work out what's going on.

The standalone sysadmin has gone into depth on this, but in a nutshell, your e mails can be sniffed at the mail spools at either end, or in transit. Its not hugely likely that that specific sort of attack will happen unless its directed, or there's a massive compromise or government involvement at one of the ISPs involved. I'd guess that its something to be avoided if there's options but not a massive risk

Answer 2

Yes they can be intercepted, your best bet is to encrypt it. That way if it is intercepted, they will not be able to see it without much effort.