GDPR in the Wake of COVID-19: Privacy Under Pressure

May 5, 2020 Leave a comment

Tech companies all over the world are rushing to support health authorities in combating the spread of the SARS-CoV2 virus, which is causing the more well-known COVID-19 disease. Whether those companies do so by invitation, by commitment, or by sheer self-interest, country after country is embracing mobile phone tracking and other technological means of tracking their citizens.

It might be worthwhile to take a deep breath and understand what’s currently technologically possible, and what might be at stake.

Tracking the infection

Everyone wants to avoid infection, and every government wishes to decrease the consequences of the pandemic within their country. And modern technology makes it possible to impose on citizens surveillance systems that represents a significant step towards realizing a Big Brother scenario.

In fighting the spread of the virus, it is crucial to know who is infected, track where the infected are located, and inform others that have been, or may come, in contact with the infected. It is precisely in this context that mobile phone tracking is playing a role, and this is currently being explored and implemented in some countries, raising ethical and privacy related questions.

Smartphone tracking apps

Once tracking of individuals’ phones is established for this particular and possibly justifiable reason, it could be tempting for a government or company to use it for other purposes as well. For instance, tracking data could be combined with other personal data such as health data, travel patterns, or even credit card records. Or the location of the infected individuals could be presented on a map along with the persons’ recent whereabouts, perhaps supplemented with warnings to avoid that area. Privacy is under pressure.

A smartphone can also be used as “electric fence” to alert authorities when someone who is quarantined at home is leaving their premises, or to fulfill an obligation from the authorities to send geolocated selfies to confirm the quarantine. Some authorities even provide individuals with wristbands that log their location and share it with the relevant authorities. The examples are many, and they are real, underlining the ongoing pressure on privacy.

Big tech gets involved

Very recently two of the world’s biggest tech companies, Apple and Google, announced they are joining forces to build an opt-in contact-tracing tool using Bluetooth technology, and will draw on beacon technology as well. The tool will work between iPhones and Android phones, and open up for future applications one cannot currently imagine.

In the first version, the solution is announced as an opt-in API (application programming interface) that will let iOS and Android applications become interoperable, and — now comes crux no 1 — the API will be open for public health authorities to build applications that support Bluetooth-based contact tracing. The tool is planned for a second step — here is crux no 2 — an upcoming update of both iOS and Android will make the API superfluous. Of course, you can opt-out, but then you can’t download the operating system software update at all.

It is a double-edged sword: It is great that big tech companies are mobilizing resources to help in a public health crisis, but do we really want these companies to potentially know even more about our personal lives (in the name of the common good)? Privacy is under pressure.

Norway’s privacy oriented approach

Norway has also launched a mobile phone application to help limit the spread of the infection, but this development is done under the strict regime of privacy regulations and in accordance with the GDPR. The decision to implement the app was taken by the Government in a regulation containing specifications and strict requirements adhering to the GDPR is taken care of, including limited use until December 1, 2020.

It should be added that some of the exceptions in GDPR for authorities is put into effect because of the extraordinary situation. However, the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget) may terminate the law supporting the regulation at any time if 1/3 of the parliament members decides so.

Even if, at least in theory, it might be feasible to use a similar app from other countries, it is crucial that the software is developed from scratch in Norway. This will ensure that Norwegian authorities maintains control over all functions and data, and that the privacy regulations in the GDPR are respected.

It is also comforting that the app is developed in cooperation with The Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet). Other countries allow similar apps to store health information, access images or video from cameras, or even establish direct contact with the police. Such functionality is naturally out of the question in Norway’s case.

The app is designed and will be used for purposes of tracking the pandemic only, and installation and usage is voluntary. When installed and activated the app collects location data using GPS and Bluetooth, which is encrypted and stored in a registry.

In case of a diagnosed infected individual, health personnel will check if the person has installed the app. Individuals that have been in closer contact than two meters for more than 15 minutes with the “infected phone” will be notified by text message. The location data is kept for up to 30 days, and when the virus is no longer a threat the app will stop collecting data. The app users may at any time delete the app and all personal data that is collected.

What does it take to succeed?

In order for the tracking to have any impact on the spread of infections, around 60% of the population* must use the application. At the time of writing (late April), 1,218,000 inhabitants had downloaded the application, that is about 30 % of the population for which downloading is allowed (age limit 16 years).

However, the number of downloads is not a good metric and there are a few obstacles for making it operable. For instance, the “app” must be installed on the phone, permission to use GPS and Bluetooth must be given, the 4 pages long privacy declaration* has to be accepted, and the battery must provide sufficient power at any time.

The battery issue turns out to be a problem because of GPS-positioning* and the simultaneous use of Bluetooth, which seems necessary to obtain precise location data.

Furthermore, not everyone is accustomed to using the smartphone functionality that is needed, depending of the user interface. For instance elderly people and people with vision impairments* may find it difficult to use the app. And, will the criteria two meters for more than 15 minutes represent a filter that is too coarse to provide useful results and subsequent notification to the user?

For these reasons, the skeptical may wonder if using the app implies that privacy is traded for uncertain and unreliable results from infection tracking.

What the application will provide even if 60% adoption is not realized is data for later research. For instance, data from mobile phone operators who can trace mobile phones movements between base stations could be correlated to instances of infections.

In the name of fighting the pandemic, the main telecommunication companies* are now, with strict privacy considerations, cooperating with The Norwegian Institute of Public Health to analyze movement patterns of the population compared with reported infections. Data is collected in groups of at least 20 people (phones), and identification of individual persons (phones) is not possible*.

Bottom Line

At Runbox we are very concerned about privacy and any type of user tracking that may infringe on this right. While various nations are developing and implementing technological solutions to combat the spread of the decease, we are grateful that we reside in a country with strong privacy traditions. In fact, the first version of personal data protection legislation was implemented in Norway as early as 1978.

It is crucial that The Norwegian Institute of Public Health and The Norwegian Data Protection Authority ensure that the app developers at Simula Research Laboratory (a Norwegian non-profit research organization) attend to both privacy and information security issues in a responsible manner according to the well established tradition in Norway.

When privacy is under threat, as in this case, it is absolutely justified that objections arise. It is often too easy to accept privacy intrusions in the name of a perceived common good.

But one related point could be made as a final remark: Perhaps it would be more appropriate to be concerned about personal data that is collected and shared through one’s use of social media, where personal data is traded and used for purposes that are literally out of control.

* Article unfortunately only available in Norwegian.

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Runbox Email is officially an ethical buy

March 24, 2020 Leave a comment

We are delighted that Ethical Consumer has rated the Runbox email service one of their ethical best buys.

Following a thorough assessment of our business that included areas relating to our privacy policy and whether we were acting in an environmentally friendly way our email service gained one of the highest scores and was given the prestigious title of being an Ethical Consumer Best Buy product (you will need to be a subscriber to see the list of Best Buys and individual email service scores).

We’re obviously very pleased with the outcome of this assessment and it further confirms that our efforts to run a privacy and environmentally conscious service are valued in the wider market of ethical products that consumers seek out.

If you would like to know more about the work that Ethical Consumer do there is information on their website. For more information about the services that Runbox provides please visit runbox.com

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Message from Runbox regarding the global health situation

March 17, 2020 2 Comments

In situations such as the one we are currently experiencing with COVID-19, uncertainty spreads easily and one may wonder whether services we rely upon will continue to function as usual. We are aware that our email service is of great importance to our customers, and that many rely upon Runbox in their professional and personal lives.

We can assure you that our operations will continue to function normally.

Runbox is located in Norway, a country with robust and reliable Internet services, and the Norwegian government and telecommunication operators are on the alert to ensure that Internet services are running as normal.

In our organization telecommuting is the modus operandi, and we are used to working from home offices or remote locations. For the immediate future the use of our headquarters is suspended in accordance with the advisory from our health authorities, but this will not have any impact on our day-to-day operations.

These are also the regulations our partners in Norway adhere to, and our affiliates abroad will naturally follow the advice in their respective countries. The data center where our servers are located will be enforcing stricter access procedures, but will otherwise operate normally.

This means that maintenance, support, development, and other internal functions will continue to work as usual. Our services are running on our own infrastructure, and there are no indications that our service will be exposed to any consequences of the current situation.

Our mission is to provide electronic communication between people, which is more important than ever in these times. We will continue fulfilling this obligation with dedication and determination.

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Runbox is double carbon negative

March 11, 2020 Leave a comment

As explained in a previous blog post, Runbox works continuously to decrease CO2 emissions from our operations and act in an environmentally responsible manner.

We recently implemented an environmental policy to this end, which lays out our commitments to reducing, reusing, and recycling our resources.

In our policy we also pledge to doubly offset any CO2 emissions that do result from our operations despite our email service being entirely hydropowered.

We are proud to announce that we are now supporting World Land Trust in order to plant trees sufficient to compensate doubly for the emissions that result from our business.

The World Land Trust certificate for carbon dioxide emissions 2019

World Land Trust is an environmental non-profit organization working to ensure conservation of plants, animals and local communities in areas at environmental risk.

We chose World Land Trust after having researched a number of organizations offering similar services, and found World Land Trust to be the most professional and reputable candidate.

We encourage other companies to offset their own emissions in order to help achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.

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GDPR implementation part 8: “Personal data” in the EU and the US is not the same

February 13, 2020 Leave a comment

We usually think of “personal data” as a term that contains for instance a person’s full name, home address, email address, telephone number, and date of birth.

These are ordinary data that can obviously identify a specific person. But in the personal data category of linked personal information are also data such as social security number, passport number, and credit card numbers – data that can identify us, and data we usually feel more restrictive about.

Linkable and non-linkable information

But there is another category of data that on its own may not be able to identify a person, but combined with other information could identify, trace, or locate a person. Such data are gender, race, sexual orientation, workplace, employment etc. These are examples of linkable personal information.

Then we have the category non-personally identifiable information. That is data that cannot be used on its own to identify or trace a person, for example IP addresses, cookies, device IDs, and software IDs (non-linkable personal information).

Privacy regulations differ in the EU and the US

Now, we know that there are industries that exist almost under the radar while taking advantage of personal data. For instance, companies in the AdTech and MarTech industry base their business on collecting and trading personal data for targeted advertising and marketing.

Many of these actors try to take protection of personal data seriously, and refer to the rules and regulations for processing personal data. In Europe this is the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) within the EU/EEA-area1, and in the US it is the responsibility of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).

However, what the EU/GDPR and US government agencies mean by “personal data” is different. Specifically, the definition by EU/GDPR is more comprehensive than the definition often referenced by US agencies, such as that of NIST (National Institute of Technology).

For example, the EU concept of personal data includes information such as cookies and IP addresses, which are not considered as personal data in a US setting.2

This means that if US websites in their privacy policy state that they are GDPR compliant, but combine their data with other data sets, they may breach the GDPR. For example, they must have the user’s consent to collect their IP address under the GDPR.

Definitions of “personal data”

National Institute of Technology’s definition

NIST’s definition of personal data is contained in the definition of Personal Identifiable Information (PII):

PII is any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual‘s identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother‘s maiden name, or biometric records; and (2) any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, and employment information.

US Office of Privacy and Open Government’s definition

Another PII-definition is from the US Office of Privacy and Open Government (OPOG) as follows:

The term personally identifiable information refers to information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.

EU’s GDPR definition

Compare these PII-definitions with the GDPR Article 4(1)’s definition of personal data:

…‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

It is obvious that GDPR defines personal data much broader than both NIST’s and OPOG’s PII, and this is underlined by this statement found in GDPR’s Recital 30:

Natural persons may be associated with online identifiers provided by their devices, applications, tools and protocols, such as internet protocol addresses, cookie identifiers or other identifiers such as radio frequency identification tags. This may leave traces which, in particular when combined with unique identifiers and other information received by the servers, may be used to create profiles of the natural persons and identify them.

The US is lacking comprehensive regulation

That said, US authorities are moving towards stronger protection of privacy and personal data, but as late as March 2019, the US Congressional Research Service says:

Despite the increased interest in data protection, the legal paradigms governing the security and privacy of personal data are complex and technical, and lack uniformity at the federal level. The Supreme Court has recognized that the Constitution provides various rights protecting individual privacy, but these rights generally guard only against government intrusions and do little to prevent private actors from abusing personal data online. At the federal statutory level, while there are a number of data protection statutes, they primarily regulate certain industries and subcategories of data. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fills in some of the statutory gaps by enforcing the federal prohibition against unfair and deceptive data protection practices. But no single federal law comprehensively regulates the collection and use of personal data (our emphasis).

Conclusion

When US websites claim to follow the rules for processing personal data it is dubious at best, compared to the regulations in the EU/EEA – which the Norwegian legislation is based on and is what Runbox adheres to.

However, it should be mentioned that some US states, for instance California, do classify some anonymous data (i.e. IP-addresses, aliases and account data) as PII.

In addition, as stated in our Privacy Policy, the personal data we ask customers to register in order to use our service is very limited. We are conscious about the trust our customers place in us when they register personal data in our systems, and in return we can demonstrate that we are compliant with the regulations.

Addendum

Above we referred to the AdTech and MarTech industries and their usage of personal data to identify, trace, or locate a person for advertising and marketing purposes. That topic is outside the scope of this blog post, but is absolutely worth writing about in a later post.

1 EEA = European Economic Area, that is the EU and three countries: Iceland, Lichtenstein, and Norway.

2 https://www.forbrukerradet.no/out-of-control/ footnote on page 102.

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Our pledge to planet Earth for 2020 and beyond

December 31, 2019 Leave a comment
Cumulative vertebrate species recorded as extinct or extinct in the wild by the IUCN (2012)

We are living at a time unprecedented on Earth.

The year 2019 has confirmed that humanity’s collective activities have pushed Earth’s ecosystems towards the boundaries of what they can sustain.

In fact, for many ecosystems and species the boundary has already been crossed, and species are now vanishing at a rate higher than ever before in recorded history.

The realized threat of global warming

In addition to more obvious drivers of species extinction such as over-exploitation of natural resources and habitat loss caused by agriculture and other land development, the greatest immediate threat to the existing biosphere is global warming.

However, in spite of repeated and increasingly dire warnings from the scientific community for more than a century, greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have increased dramatically and continue to do so.

Already in 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) stated that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would result in a global temperature increase of 5–6°C. Arrhenius’ results are in fact very close to our current climate models.

The benchmark for CO2 content in the atmosphere is the pre-industrial time, that is before about 1750, when the CO2 content is estimated to have been about 280 ppm (parts per million).

Global Atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial times

By 2017, the annual global average CO2 levels exceeded 400 ppm, which corresponds to the limit of 1.5°C set by the IPCC for keeping the climate changes under safe control. As of November 2019, this number has passed 410 ppm.

Last time the CO2 concentration was that high, horses and camels roamed the high Arctic and sea levels were at least 30 feet higher than today.

The fact that these changes are now happening more rapidly than in recorded history thus far means that many species and ecosystems that make up the biosphere are unable to adapt quickly enough.

A climate spinning out of control

The chemical composition of the atmosphere and the oceans are undergoing dramatic changes with accelerating positive feedback loops involving not only CO2 but methane, nitrogen, and sulfur as well as several other essential components.

These changes are causing the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, and therefore the climate, to spin out of control.

When the Earth’s temperature increases and its distribution is altered, it affects geophysical systems such as prevailing wind patterns and ocean currents — the global conveyor belt responsible for carrying salt, nutrients, and other essential chemical components upon which marine life depends.

The warmer climate not only melts sea ice and increases sea levels, but heats up wetland peat and thaws tundra in arctic regions which releases additional methane into the atmosphere.

Warmer oceans also absorb less oxygen, which leads to more anaerobic bacteria that produce toxic hydrogen sulfide gases that could have disastrous effects on existing organic life.

These global feedback systems and cycles are so large and complex that it can take decades or centuries for the consequences of our current emissions to take full effect.

This means that we are tipping the balance of the natural systems we depend on for survival and are pushing them to dangerous and unpredictable levels with possibly irreversible effects.

As a result the living Earth itself is turning into an unfamiliar environment that will be detrimental to life as we have known it.

The human race is heading for a disaster — a warned catastrophe, that is — and the entire remaining biosphere is at stake.

The consequences are already upon us

We are ending a year that has seen the most dramatic effects of climate change thus far, closing a decade with increasingly noticeable consequences of continually growing greenhouse gas emissions.

The direct effects are well-known by now and include physical impacts like the melting of ice sheets and subsequent sea level rise, as well as changes in ocean currents and weather patterns.

These impacts in turn lead to increased droughts, heat waves, and uncontrollable wildfires, as well as extreme flooding, cyclones, blizzards, and rainstorms with inevitable crop failures and global fish stock depletion as a result.

In addition to the catastrophic loss of biodiversity, the accelerating changes in our natural environment lead to regional famine, mass migrations, conflicts, and war between peoples fighting for dwindling resources.

Current mitigation plans are inadequate

According to the UN’s Climate Action Summit report we have until 2030 to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C . This entails a global average reduction of 4.5% per year over the next 10 years, while emissions on average have increased 1.5% annually in recent years.

This may not sound like much, but in reality it constitutes an enormous challenge on a scale unlike any we have successfully undertaken in the past.

The bottom line is that every person, every organization, every business, and every government have to do their uttermost to reduce their ecological footprint.

Although governments, large industrial companies, and international institutions can do the most to reduce hydrocarbon dependency and restore the depletion of natural resources that is taking place, even small contributions will have an effect — but we are short on time.

Our commitment

At Runbox we have decided to have a positive impact on the planet and our environment, and we want to achieve this with a net negative ecological footprint.

We will take responsibility in several different ways, and have implemented the first version of our Environmental Policy to this end.

In our policy we commit to reducing our ecological footprint as much as possible through reducing, reusing, and recycling the resources we utilize.

This includes our data center, servers and other equipment we acquire, where we source our hardware, how we use and power our office spaces, and the communication and transportation involved in our operations.

For the greenhouse gas emissions that do result from our operations and activities we shall compensate doubly.

We will accomplish this by funding the planting of trees through OneTreePlanted sufficient to absorbing twice the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we are responsible for.

Planting trees is the best existing method of capturing carbon from the atmosphere, and has several other beneficial side-effects as well. So we will support rewilding the forests in order to restore and protect ecosystems, our natural environment, and a habitable climate.

We will also encourage partners, stakeholders, and associates to become more environmentally friendly. Furthermore, we will push for the development and implementation of green and renewable technologies and help encourage governments to become more environmentally responsible.

We are extending our commitment to provide free email services to non-profit organizations with an environmentally oriented profile.

We hope to inspire other companies to adopt similar policies and contribute to a positive impact on the only planet we can call home.

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GDPR implementation part 7: Information and Tools for Implementation of Users’ Rights

November 23, 2019 Leave a comment
GDPR

One of the main objectives for the European Union (EU) when they developed the replacement for the Data Protection Directive 95/46 (from 1995), was to expand individual control over the use of personal data.

This can be seen in a broader view as an implementation of the right to one’s private life, as laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 8). The right to respect for one’s private and family life is also stated in the EU Treaty on Fundamental Rights (Article 7).

Norway has signed both of these agreements, and the Constitution of Norway implements these rights in Article 100 and 102 of the Constitution and in the Norwegian Human Rights Act.

Already in GDPR1 Article 1 we see the connection between the GDPR and especially the Treaty on Fundamental Rights:

This Regulation protects fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons and in particular their right to the protection of personal data

Article 1-2 of the GDPR

Observe the expression “rights and freedoms of natural persons“, which is very important throughout the Regulation and is used 31 times in all.

Before we go further into the subject of this post, it is important to state that Norway’s legislation on the processing of personal data was already compliant with the GDPR before the latter was declared as the new framework for the legislation in Norway. The Norwegian Personal Data Act (PDA2), as compliant with the GDPR, tok effect 20 July 2018.

First and foremost, the GDPR states that no processing of personal data shall be done unless the data subject has given consent (Article 6-1, a). Runbox obtains consent to registration of our users’ personal data when they sign up for an account and accept our Terms of Service.

The GDPR (Article 6-1, ff.) allows a controller – that is Runbox in our context – to process personal data when there is a legitimate reason for doing so, i.e. something that is necessary to use our services.

It is an important objective for the GDPR to secure one’s control of one’s own personal data. In this respect, the GDPR has given the data subjects eight fundamental rights (Article 15—17).

When implementing these rights in Runbox, we found that most of those were already there. However, the introduction of the GDPR provided us with a checklist and the opportunity to analyze our status, and to improve our services in this respect.

Our Privacy Policy provides exhaustive information about how we process personal data, but here is an overview of the data subject’s rights, and our implementation of them:

  • The right to access (Article 15): Since Runbox does not collect other types of information than what the users register by themselves, they can easily check which personal data is processed. The data processing is only done in order to process your emails, and optionally your web site and domain name.
  • The right to rectification (Article 16): You may at any time log in to your email account and change your personal information.
  • The right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’) (Article 17): You may terminate your subscription any time, and your account contents will subsequently be deleted after 6 months. Your personal details data will be deleted after 5 years in accordance with Norwegian accounting regulations. However, you may send a request to dataprotectionofficer@nullrunbox.com for immediate erasure of your account contents.
  • The right to restriction of processing (Article 18): Runbox will never use your personal information for purposes other than providing our services to you, so restrictions are not necessary in our context.
  • The right to be informed (Article 19): Runbox uses your personal information only in order to provide our services to you..
  • The right to data portability (Article 20): In case that you wish to move to another email service provider and export your data, you will find information on how to do this through our services and documentation.
  • The right to object (Article 21): Since we never will use your personal data for other purposes than to deliver the services you have agreed to, this right is implicitly fulfilled.
  • The right to individual decision-making (Article 22): This article is intended to protect data subjects against automated data-processing that might involve profiling them based on personally identifiable information, which is something Runbox doesn’t do.

Regarding questions or concerns about our implementation of the GDPR, customers may use the email address dataprotectionofficer@nullrunbox.com as a direct channel to our appointed Data Protection Officer.

Some final remarks about consent: Runbox uses cookies in order to provide our services, and new users must give express consent to this on our signup page. On this page, and on the Account page once logged in, you may also give/revoke consent to future news and offers from Runbox.

In our next post in this series, we will consider our contractual situation regarding GDPR requirements. Stay tuned.

Footnotes

1. The GDPR means Regulation EU 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46 / EC General Data Protection, General Data Processing Regulation. Article refers to Article in the GDPR, unless stated otherwise.

2. The Personal Data Act (the PDA) means the regulations that are currently in force in Norway for the protection of individuals in connection with the processing of personal data, which includes the implementation of GDPR in Norway (2018-07-20).

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Security improvements to our services

November 7, 2019 2 Comments

At Runbox we are continuously working to improve the security of our services. We are now strengthening the security of your web browser’s connection to our servers to ensure that it utilizes modern web security standards.

If you are using an updated version of one of the major web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Edge you will probably not notice any effects. You can then continue using our services just like before, while knowing that the strongest encryption protocols are being utilized.

If you’re using a non-standard or not updated web browser, then please read the information below for more details about these changes and how they may affect you.

Those who are interested in the technical details of these changes may also find this information useful.

What we are doing

When you visit our website the connection between your web browser and our web servers is encrypted. This means that no one can intercept your username, password or any other transmitted data including the content of your email messages.

It’s important to use a modern browser that supports modern encryption methods to prevent that encryption from being broken and compromised. This is essential to web security because hackers increasingly use more powerful computers and techniques in their attempts to decrypt data and eavesdrop on unsuspecting users.

In order to ensure that Runbox is providing the latest and most secure encryption between your browser and our service we will therefore end support for outdated encryption methods.

This entails that we will only support the strongest encryption cipher suites that are compatible with most major web browsers.

It also helps us prevent unauthorized access to our servers and helps keep the Runbox services safe for all of our customers.

On December 1, 2019 we will retire some outdated encryption methods and this might affect some older web browsers.

Once these changes are made the TLS protocol version and cipher suites will be the same for all access methods to our email services, including web, POP, IMAP, and SMTP.

The technical details

You don’t need to delve into all the technical details, but we know many customers are interested in this and it is useful for everyone to stay educated about web security.

The changes involve retiring support for TLS (Transport Layer Security) version 1.0 and 1.1, and only provide support TLS 1.2 or later. We will also only support a small suite of strong encryption cipher suites that are recommended by the reputable organizations Mozilla and OWASP.

TLS 1.2 has been around for 10 years so there has been a long time for browsers to adopt the use of this type of encryption. However, you don’t need to understand anything about this to make any necessary changes.

All the cipher suites we will be utilizing are of the type Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral (DHE), which means that a unique cryptographic key is generated each time a new connection is made.

This in turn means that even in the unlikely event that one set of keys is compromised it cannot be used for another connection made from another client (“forward secrecy”).

An updated list of cipher suites that are supported currently include the following:

  • ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
  • ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
  • DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
  • DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
  • ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256
  • ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384
  • DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256
  • DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256

More information about these cipher suites can be found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange

How this may affect you

The vast majority of web browsers already support TLS 1.2 and you are only likely to have a problem if you are using an outdated browser and/or an outdated operating system.

We have tested the following browsers and they all work with the modern encryption that we will use:

  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
  • Edge

Many other modern browsers are also likely to work with TLS 1.2 and those listed above are just commonly used ones that we have tested.

What you can do

If you are not using an upgraded version of one of the major web browsers listed above, please upgrade your web browser and/or operating system now. This is the most important action you can take to ensure that your data and communications are secure.

If you’re using a web browser not listed above and are unsure whether it will continue to work with the specifications we have provided, we recommend that you keep one of the major web browsers available as an alternative.

We generally recommend Firefox as it is free, standards compliant, and open source, and therefore reviewed by the security community.

Further help

If you need any further information or help on this issue please contact Runbox Support with details of how we can help you.

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GDPR implementation part 6: Access Control and Permissions

October 24, 2019 Leave a comment

In part 3 of this blog series we described how we mapped the “world” of our operations, including the following components:

  • Server infrastructure, including all servers and other hardware as well as the links between these.
  • Software components that comprise our application stack from the operating system level to the front-end application level.
  • Data networks, including how and where our serves are connected to the Internet, but also the Local Area Network at our premises.
  • Data inventory, i.e. all personal data including customer and employee data, financial records, information about partners/associates, etc.
  • Applications necessary to run the company itself, meaning software that is managerial in nature.

Access control concerns permissions attached to system-related objects. Within each of the components listed above, there may be several sub-objects — servers, software modules, data files, catalogues etc., to which restricted access should be implemented.

Creating an Access Control Table

These objects then form one axis of an Access Control matrix or table (ACT). The other axis of the table include organizational units, broken down into person-related objects, for instance segments or groups, but also individuals, for each unit.

After breaking these objects down to an appropriate level, we attached roles to each of these components. In terms of the GDPR, data processor and data controller are examples of roles to use in this context.

To each of the defined roles, we attached categories of tasks, for instance sysadmin, developer, and support staff tasks.

For our email service systems we found it convenient to structure the system-related objects in 3 main categories:

  • General software.
  • Application software.
  • Personal data.

Within each of these categories there are various numbers of objects, to which access permissions are attached, comprising the Access Control Table for the realm in question. For other realms of our “world” we used a similar approach, resulting in a number of ACTs that implement a principle of least privilege.

With this the groundwork was laid for establishing various mechanisms for implementing the access control regime, in order to secure our most precious pieces of hardware, software, and data.

In our next blog post in this series we will look at Information and Tools for Implementation of Users’ Rights.

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GDPR implementation part 5: Risk Assessment and Gap Analysis

September 15, 2019 1 Comment

In previous posts in this blog series we have referred to our main planning document, Rules and Regulations for Information Security Management, or RRISM for short, where our road to GDPR compliance started out. In that document we worked out the structure of the project, based on descriptions and definitions of the various components.

Obviously, risk management has to be taken very seriously, and the RRISM lays the groundwork for how we should handle this aspect of information security. The baseline is that risk management is an essential part of the company’s life, and one that comprises all its assets.

Defining and assessing risks

As usual, we first had to agree upon some definitions, and we found the following to be adequate for our purpose — directly from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology):

Risk is the net negative impact of the exercise of a vulnerability, considering both the probability and the impact of occurrence. Risk management is the process of identifying risk, assessing risk, and taking steps to reduce risk to an acceptable level.

Risk is a function of the likelihood of a given threat-source’s exercising a particular potential vulnerability, and the resulting impact of that adverse event on the organization.

In order to assess risks, we first have to identify possible threats that may exploit vulnerabilities in our systems or our organization.

In short: Risk management shall first and foremost have as objective to protect assets that are at potential risk.

Analyzing assets

Then we outlined the methodology we adopted:

  1. Identify the assets that could be at risk.
  2. Identify possible threats and vulnerabilities.
  3. Identify the possible consequences of each potential vulnerability.

Each threat was characterized by probability and criticality which together gives one of four risk levels: Very High (red), High (orange), Medium (yellow), and Low (green). This helped us decide what we should prioritize regarding improvements, measures, and other actions.

Analyzing our assets we actually found more of these than anticipated, grouped in 21 different asset types, ranging from our customer base, general software in use and our own key business systems, through hardware and communication lines, and employees and partners – and more.

Threat, vulnerability, and gap analysis

Then we reviewed the vulnerability potentials (what could go wrong) for each asset and created scenarios for possible consequences if something happened that exploited a vulnerability.

The question raised thereafter was: Do we have the necessary measures and remedies in place to eliminate the potential vulnerabilities, or mitigate the consequences if things went wrong — or is there a gap?

The next step was to find out what actions should be taken in order to close the gaps in cases where we were not satisfied with the situation, and this will be the topic of future blog posts in this series.

Conclusion

Our mantra through this process has been: Threats we can imagine will sooner or later be reality, but never as we expect them to happen, and never where we expect them.

We live in an ever-changing environment, which means that risks have to be monitored continuously, and so our risk assessment and gap analysis is continually evolving as well.

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