What is masked email? This new spin on an old practice supercharges your security

Using unique login information is one way to make account takeovers harder for would-be criminals. Email masking adds another layer to that concept.

- ALAINA YEE

Online security used to be simple. All you needed was a good password, and in the early days, you didn’t need a ton of characters to achieve that goal. Privacy also wasn’t quite as fragile as it is today. Your email wasn’t constantly being lost to yet another data breach.

But as online hackers and criminals get more sophisticated, so have recommendations for best security practices. Currently experts recommend the use of unique, random passwords (fave. co/3lRkfRz)—and the more characters, the better—plus two-factor authentication as a strong baseline. But you can go further— and companies on the front lines of online security are trying to make that easier.

One such step is masked email. (You may also hear it referred to as email masks or email masking.) The practice formalizes a long-available feature known as email aliases as a privacy and security measure. A randomized email address is created to hide (aka mask) your true email address for an online account. Any correspondence sent to the masked email address gets forwarded to your actual inbox. The sender doesn’t know the email’s final destination. They’ll only find out if you accidentally reply to a message as your main account.