Email Security

who even still uses email anyway

Email is cleartext by default. However, S/MIME and PGP are used to secure email. They both use certificates to provide authentication, message integrity, non-repudiation, and privacy.

Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME)

Use public key infrastructure and digital certificates to encrypt the sending and receiving of emails.

Pretty Good Privacy

PGP uses two methods for validating certificates:

• Individual users can decide which certificates to trust.
• Trust signatures can be used to sign other keys in a manner similar to Certificate Authorities

PGP can also be used for encryption of phone calls (of all things) and whole disk encryption.