Attack of the Archive Button: How unlimited e-mail storage has put our data at risk

Attack of the Archive Button: How unlimited e-mail storage has put our data at risk

Unlimited storage and Google's unassuming "Archive" button mean we're leaving more and more mail in our inbox. Being able to retrieve a phone number from an email your Dad sent you 6 years ago is pretty useful but is it safe?

In the late 90's, a few Mb of storage for an e-mail account seemed sufficient. When Hotmail was first launched in 1996, the service offered free e-mail with 2Mb of storage space. Fourteen years later, we can barely cram a single attachment into such a tiny inbox. Hotmail, Google and Yahoo, all of whom now provide several gigabytes of storage for free, seem to increase the storage capacity of their services on a daily basis.

What does this mean for the user? Sure, we could cram our inbox full of attachments but the limit on attachment size still hovers at around 20Mb. So what do we do with all that space?

Enter the Google archive button. In case you're unfamiliar with Google Mail, the archive button is a humble alternative to the delete button instead of annihilating mail that's cluttering your inbox, you can put it into long term storage, in case you (or Google) ever need it again. Archiving unwanted mail means that if you want to retrieve Uncle Frank's phone number from that email your Dad sent you 6 years ago, you can. Considering its potential benefits, retaining your unwanted mail until the end of time itself doesn't seem like a bad idea.

However, ignoring the fact that you're providing Google with an unabridged history of your own existence (another matter entirely), hoarding your old mail may not be such a great idea. While most e-mails you retain may be fairly innocuous (in terms of their security value), some e-mails really should be deleted once they've fulfilled their purpose. There's a reason Tom Cruise's mail always self-destructs in Mission Impossible some data needs to be destroyed once it's reached its destination.

In a hypothetical scenario in which your mail account is compromised by a malicious attacker, the best possible outcome is one in which the attacker finds absolutely nothing of value and closes the account or otherwise prevents you from using it ever again. If you've spent the last six years habitually archiving your old mail however, the attacker now has access to a treasure trove of personal data. Your archived mail may contain your full name, telephone number, address, bank account details, usernames and passwords for a number of online accounts and a variety of personal information.

For many of us, this is a nightmare scenario a mystery attacker has locked us out of our inbox and has access to enough personal data to make our life very difficult! If they gain access to your PayPal account, they might run up hundreds of pounds of expenses before you even realise you've lost control. If they gain access to your personal Facebook account, you could spend the rest of the week explaining to your relatives why you've been trying to sell them performance enhancing drugs. If they gain access to your work-related accounts, you could lose your job.

While the act of archiving your old e-mails may have seemed fairly innocent, it has placed your personal data at great risk. However unlikely it seems, your inbox may one day be breached by an attacker be they a disgruntled colleague, a family member or a complete stranger and when they do, you want your inbox to be devoid of any value.

So the next time you're wondering whether or not to archive or delete, ask yourself whether the e-mail has any value. If the answer is yes, delete it. The only good inbox, is an empty inbox.

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