Add privacy and security using email aliases with Bitwarden

An email alias, also known as a masked email, is an address with the sole purpose of forwarding any message it receives to your personal email. These aliases typically don’t have anything in the address related to your personal information, making these services a must for those who want to retain a higher level of privacy when signing up for online services or subscriptions. An email alias address forwards emails to the user's primary inbox while keeping the original email address confidential. 

For example, if an online retailer requires you to create an account for checkout, you can use an email alias instead of your primary email. You will still receive the receipt, instantly forwarded from the service to your email account, but the retailer won’t have your real email address. By using email aliases, you can sign up for online services, newsletters, and other digital communications without exposing your primary email address.

Data breaches are sadly too common, with usernames, email addresses, passwords, and other sensitive information getting leaked from a company’s servers and into the hands of nefarious actors. Fortunately, most (but not all) internet companies work hard to protect stored passwords, saving only the hashed values so that the “plain text” passwords aren’t exposed. However, that protection is not always extended to email addresses, which makes them easy to compile into large databases and share/sell on the dark web.

“Hackers and trackers abuse email addresses and passwords to break into accounts and link personal information.” - Luke Crouch, Firefox Relay Security Engineer

Cybercriminals scan thousands of lists to find an email address that shows up more than once, which allows them to build a profile of that user for a possible targeted attack. They can then use that information to launch a credential-stuffing attack, trying various combinations of possible passwords with the leaked email address or username. Additionally, a leaked email is an easy target for spam and phishing schemes.

“Most people have one primary email address that becomes their internet identity. [Creating] email aliases on the fly adds a line of privacy defense to online accounts.” - Son Nguyen Kim, SimpleLogin Founder and CEO

Email alias services protect your privacy and security because hackers cannot learn your real email address or any other details about you from data breaches. Additionally, if you discover that your alias address has been sold to third parties for marketing or spam, you can simply disable that alias and create another.