A New Heuristic Approach to Safeguarding Online Digital Data

Abstract

Security challenges have been raised by private and public sectors related to exchange digital data electronically. In the current state, protocols such as the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), post office protocol (POP), and internet message access protocol (IMAP) transfer and store email messages in plaintext. Therefore, the confidentiality of email messages cannot be assured. Email sent using these protocols and without using any other security tool, must be assumed to have been read and compromised, because its confidentiality and integrity cannot be assured. Thus in this paper a new approach as a tool for improvement of current popular email protocols is proposed. The novel proposed protocol will be manifested in the Email Security Protocol (ESP) which is designed to add a layer of security and confidentiality to email messages transmitted over unsecured public networks. ESP is designed in three models to allow efficient and effective implementation upon various information system architectures. The result of testing the new proposed approach showed superior performance comparing to the existing one.