dot net email address security
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Mark Topic as New
- Mark Topic as Read
- Float this Topic for Current User
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Printer Friendly Page
- Plusnet Community
- :
- Forum
- :
- Help with my Plusnet services
- :
- :
- Re: dot net email address security
dot net email address security
02-06-2014 9:48 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
The reason I ask is quite simply that I am a volunteer within the NHS, and I am being asked to use a *@nhs.net email address for security when corresponding. Now frankly, I do not want the inconvenience of having to log into an @nhs.net email system regularly when I am only a volunteer, but prefer to just use my Plusnet email address. No doubt I could use my Outlook email client to autoforward / autoretrieve emails from @nhs.net, but that would not work so easily on my tablet or smartphone, and I can see absolutely no benefit from using @nhs.net as my correspondence is not exactly confidential or a security risk !
The answer which I get is that @nhs.net is more secure than Plusnet, which I find hard to believe. For one thing it occurs to me that there are probably more @nhs.net subscribers than Plusnet has, which makes @nhs.net a more obvious target for cyber attack. But secondly I have to ask myself why a .net email address should be intrinsically more secure than a .com or any other email address (excluding pergaps Gmail and Hotmail which are always being targeted). Or am I being naive, is there some cryptic special security firewall that @nhs.net might use that someone like Plusnet does / can not ?
Re: dot net email address security
02-06-2014 9:54 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Ex-Broadband Service Manager
Re: dot net email address security
02-06-2014 9:56 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
There is no such thing as a .co.uk or .net being intrinsically more secure - the security is down to the mail servers and users being able to retain control of their accounts.
Re: dot net email address security
02-06-2014 9:58 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
A bit like sending emails through the eBay system - not only are your emails recorded on your own machine but a copy of them is taken by eBay for both your benefit and eBay's records.
Re: dot net email address security
03-06-2014 9:21 AM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler) Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!) Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20) Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month) Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month) |
Re: dot net email address security
03-06-2014 10:54 AM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
It is interesting that two nhs email addresses are available - nhs.gov.uk and nhs.net. All staff usually have nhs.gov.uk email addresses as standard, and others have nhs.net email addresses also. As my nhs.net email address has not yet been activated, I do not know how it will work. It may be that email communication is restricted to people who have a nhs.net account - a bit like an intranet but accessible over the internet by logging in. In other words, perhaps to send an email to a nhs.net email address, one has to be logged in to the nhs.net system as an authorised sender, whereas to send an email to a nhs.gov.uk address, anyone can send an email without restriction. Is that likely to be the way it works ?
If that is the case, then I am hoping at least that the nhs.net system will have some automated facility which will notify my private email address that a message is waiting for me, which will meanI only need to log in when it is necessaey. My internet banking system works like that.
Re: dot net email address security
03-06-2014 1:49 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
That argument does hold true to communications between two gov.uk / nhs.net email accounts, as a communication from one such email address to another such email address does not egress from the gov.uk or NHS N3 private network. However the security claim completely fails inspection if the communication is either from or to Joe Public having any old email address. Also anyone can make it look (to the uninitiated) like an email came from a nhs.gov.uk or nhs.net email address, so there is no sense of "better" security there in respect of the sender being (or appearing to be) authentic.
The only situation where there is "better" security in using such addresses is when one government department needs to be assured that the recipient is who the say they are. I know of one government department who regularly communicates with many NHS people (hospital consultants / specialists and GPs) and to be assured they are who they claim to be and that they are looking at the correspondence in a secure environment, that government department will only use nhs.gov.uk or nhs.net email addresses for email recipients.
Irrespective of the security debate, you ought not to be using your private email service either at "work" or for the purposes of your "employment". They ought to be kept distinct.
In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links
Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.
If this post helped, please click the Thumbs Up and if it fixed your issue, please click the This fixed my problem green button below.
Re: dot net email address security
03-06-2014 2:39 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Thanks. That is indeed very helpful and pretty well answers it all. Certainly the nhs.gov.uk addresses receive emails from public email servers without problem. I do not know about the nhs.net system yet, but I am assuming , as you say, that it will limit correspondence to only other nhs.net subscribers. I will have to wait and see.
With regard to separating personal from work email accounts, I am retired and so I do not have a work email account. The nhs.net account would be the equivalent, but then it would mean logging in several times a day in case there just happened to be a message for me, which is fairly rare as I am an unpaid volunteer and not a clinician. If I were to be asked to do something suddenly I would be unaware of it unless I logged in several times a day - all that for something that might happen once a fortnight ! It is too much hastle for me, whereas as things stand, they just send me an email to my private email address if they want to get in touch. It is security over-kill, because it is just not relevant in the context.
Thanks again for the explanation.
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Mark Topic as New
- Mark Topic as Read
- Float this Topic for Current User
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Printer Friendly Page
- Plusnet Community
- :
- Forum
- :
- Help with my Plusnet services
- :
- :
- Re: dot net email address security