Google has plans to warn Gmail users when an email they receive in Gmail comes over an unencrypted connection. Gmail currently has a default that applies HTTPS for the connections between your browser and its servers, but this approach is relatively new, as most Gmail messages used to go unencrypted. Recent concerns about email encryption drove Google to get begin encrypting its emails in the past couple of years. Nowadays, 57 percent of emails that Gmail recipients receive from outside ISPs are encrypted and 81 percent of outgoing messages from Gmail are also encrypted.

The number of cyber attacks against email providers is likely to go away as more companies refuse to pay ransoms. While they have yet to subside completely (ProtonMail was just extorted by spammers this month), Rob Mueller, a director at FastMail in Melbourne thinks the process will go away because most companies won't pay. Still these companies are the perfect targets since the software to stop these DDoS attacks can be expensive.

Millennials check email more than any other age group, according to a new report from Adobe. The research revealed that almost half of millennial will even check their emails in the bathroom. In addition, the study revealed that 98 percent of millennials check their personal email at least every few hours at work, and almost 87 percent of Millennials check their work email outside of work.

Executives that travel abroad to the less safe regions of the world should consider encrypting their emails to avoid vulnerabilities, according to Will Ackerly, co-founder and CTO of Virtru, an email encryption and digital privacy company. In an interview with CNBC he pointed to the fact that China and Iran have both hacked into U.S. government email accounts as a reason for concern. In addition, Ackerly's firm helped an oil company whose executives were kidnapped in Mexico because their email communications and calendar invitations were exposed.

ProtonMail, an end-to-end encrypted email provider in Switzerland, paid almost $6,000 in ransom in order to put an end to an advanced denial-of-service attack that shut down its networks this week. The company revealed the news in a blog post explaining that they paid the ransom via bitcoins. The attacks continued after the payment was made, but they eventually stopped. Critics suggest that by paying the ransom, the company is encouraging more attacks.

Hillary Clinton's BlackBerry was not secure when she made her first trip abroad as secretary of state, according to newly surfaced State Department documents. Her device was not issued by the State Department. Diplomatic security official had warned Clinton's chief of staff against using their BlackBerries in "Mahogany Row," the suite of offices at where Clinton worked back in 2009. "I cannot stress too strongly ... that any unclassified BlackBerry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving emails, and exploring calendars," he said.

Scottish online food delivery service Just Eat is warning customers about a fake email in circulation that is trying to solicit personal information from customers. The emails use artwork from legitimate Just Eat emails and ask recipients to complete a survey in exchange for a GBP10 credit. "We have taken information stored on file from your account, to confirm we have got the right person we kindly request that you check that the below information is correct," reads the email which links to a malicious site designed to steal personal information.

Email can have a negative effect on your mood, according to Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who's been doing research on the subject. She found that people check their email on average 77 times per day. The study found that the more people check their email, the less productive they are. In addition, reading email is more stressful than actually writing emails because reading tends to be associated with processing tasks while typing means that you are getting things done.

Students at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa were targeted in an email phishing attack this week. The spam emails claimed to come from the university and featured a legitimate logo form the school. The IT department attributed the threat to a "compromised" email account on the server. Likely an email user at the school fell victim to a spam email, compromising their account and exposing their contact list.

Email open rates of Black Friday-themed emails were the highest on the Monday and Tuesday before the holiday last year, according to a report from Yesmail. The research revealed that these emails saw an average of 15.66 percent open rate on Monday and 15.43 percent open rate on Tuesday in 2014. However, most retailers sent Black-Friday themed emails on Friday. The company recommends sending earlier this year.