Boost Your Hotmail Security with HTTPS Data Encryption

Hotmail announced yesterday that it was offering its users the possibility to take advantage of encryption when using the Hotmail free e-mail service.

This will be possible once the HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) for Hotmail is enabled, which will encrypt your data just like it does when you sign in, via secure socket layers (SSL).

To enable full-session HTTPS for Hotmail you can type in 'https://hotmail.com' or set it as the default for e-mail, calendar, and contacts at https://account.live.com/ManageSSL.

Once the session is enabled, SSL will be used from the start until a user logs off, and not just at the time of signing in.

Dick Craddock, the group program manager for Windows Live Hotmail, wrote in a blog post that after enabling HTTPS, users will no longer have Outlook Hotmail Connector, Windows Live Mail, and the Windows Live application for Windows Mobile (version 6.5 and earlier), as well as Symbian.

This adds to a series of recent security updates, that will only make it easier to protect a Hotmail account from hijackers.

And starting today, SkyDrive, Photos, Docs, and Devices pages will all also automatically use SSL encryption, transferring all their data over HTTPS.

Another company that adopted this security strategy is Google, who gave its customers the possibility of using HTTPS and since Januray, actually made it a default setting.

To get back to Hotmail, Craddock added on the Inside Windows Live blog that using a connection with advanced security features, is the best way of being sure that your account is safe and that no one will have access to your personal information.

Microsoft announces this encryption as the next step following new security features that the Redmond-based company added in September, which make it harder for e-mail accounts to get hijacked and easier for victims to recover them if that happens.