Is Gmail sufficiently secure?

Question

This ones bugged me for a while now, ever since I've opened my Gmail (Googlemail) account and started receiving e-mails.

It is encouraged to 'never delete emails' with this service and of course, its extremely handy to be able to look up old correspondence that you've forgot about. This opens a whole new world where you never 'forget' your old usernames, passwords or even bank account login details.

I know the best way to ensure data is secure is to protect it. For which we have usernames and passwords. However failing that the best way to protect data is to hide it, in as many different places as possible.

Assuming the first fails (your username and password gets compromised), because of how handy it is to simply archive with Gmail, this would mean my whole life was available to anyone, warts and all.

I'm not so sure I'm happy about this. So whats the general consensus on this matter?

Answer 1

If it's sensitive data (ie: passwords, bank information) then it's not a good idea to store it in email, period. What if you forget to logout when you leave your computer? Then anybody who comes by has access, hacker or not.

The idea of never deleting emails is nice, but be practical about what you store in it. I'll admit I'm not as secure about this sort of thing as I should be, but email != good place to keep secret things.