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I have a personal website and a linux host. I have defined an email like me@host.ir which forwards all my emails to my gmail account.

I have a security concern about using this email. Because I am not sure whether the host or domain registrar(.ir) could access my emails, even though I have set zero quota.

Are my personal emails safe in this scenario?

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  • By even having access to a "quota" it sounds as if you have a full mailbox and not simply a forwarder? – MrWhite Jul 30 '13 at 21:37
  • Yes I have a full mailbox but I have configured cpanel to forward all my emails. – Mehdi Sadeghi Jul 31 '13 at 13:59
  • If you simply want to forward email then I wouldn't have thought you would want a full mailbox (unless maybe you want to send email through it's SMTP server - which you can do from gmail)? With a zero quota, doesn't this constantly generate over quota warnings on the server and bounce emails back to the sender (as well as forwarding them)? – MrWhite Jul 31 '13 at 17:03
  • I dont know how to have a mail address without mailbox. I used the cpanel option for creating mail on my host. BTW I sat the quota to zero and I am still able to receive emails which are forwarded to my gmail account. – Mehdi Sadeghi Jul 31 '13 at 19:02
  • I guess this might depend on your cPanel theme/version, but in the cPanels I've used of late the Forwarders are completely separate from the Email Accounts (ie. mailboxes). For instance, on one account I have just 4 mailboxes, but 100's of forwarders (some of which forward to a mailbox on the same account). – MrWhite Jul 31 '13 at 22:20
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Forwarding can be sniffed.

Technically any form of forwarding service can intercept emails since the data is going though their network and then that of the target email address. So even without a inbox so to speak your data is being sent though the host.ir connection therefor can be sniffed and depending on what encryption has been used to send the email determines how easily the email can be read. If the email is sent though insecurely not using SSL then the email is completely readable since all they would have to do is monitor the forwarding service.

So to answer your question, it depends on how the email is being sent. But at the end of the day if your concerned about host.ir then you should not use them as a forwarding service at all.

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  • I use Gmail for both sending and receiving emails, so any thirdparty would need to break gmail encryption to read my data. I am concerned not about their service but the surveillance. – Mehdi Sadeghi Jul 31 '13 at 14:04
  • From gmail to gmail? That could well be encrypted in it's entirety. However, gmail to another-email or another-email to gmail could well be unencrypted/plain text for much of its route. – MrWhite Jul 31 '13 at 22:25

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