How to Securely Send a File with Encryption

Regulated professionals are often reminded that securely sending files with end-to-end encryption is critical to protecting the sensitive data of their firm, clients, or patients.

This information is correct, but doesn’t explain the technical mechanism that keeps your sensitive data safe. In this article, we will explain what encryption does, how it works, and what softwares properly implement it, so that regulated professionals can make better-informed decisions about what platform to use to send sensitive data.

Why Should I Encrypt Files?

Let’s use an analogy.

Sending a file without encryption is like mailing a document in a transparent envelope. Anyone who intercepts it along the way can read exactly what’s inside, whether that’s financial records, patient charts, or a signed contract. For anyone working in a regulated industry, these risks are not hypothetical. They are breach notifications waiting to happen, and industry regulators treat every file sent as a compliance event that could be scrutinized during a later audit.

The numbers back this up. Cybersecurity Ventures projected that global cybercrime damage would reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, up from $3 trillion in 2015. Regulated professionals handle exactly the kind of data attackers want most: health records, account numbers, legal filings. Encryption is what keeps that data unreadable if it ends up somewhere it shouldn’t.

What Does Encryption Do to a File?

Encryption turns a file into unreadable code. Only someone with the matching key can turn it back into the original document. Without that key, the file stays locked no matter who has it.

For anyone responsible for protecting client or patient data, encryption isn’t optional. It’s one of the baseline controls regulators expect to see, whether that’s HIPAA for health data, GLBA for financial data, or a state privacy law that applies to your industry.

Why End-to-End Encryption Is Safer

Plenty of tools encrypt files two ways: in transit, while the file is being sent, and at rest, while it’s sitting on a server. Both are real protections, but both leave one gap open: the service provider holds the decryption key. That means the company hosting your files could still access them, whether for malware scanning, indexing, or a legal request.

End-to-end encryption closes that gap. The file is encrypted before it leaves your device and only decrypted once it reaches the recipient’s device. Nobody in between holds a key that can open it: not the platform, not an internet provider, not the company running the servers.

For regulated professionals, that’s the difference between trusting a vendor’s security practices and knowing it’s not possible for anyone but the intended recipient to read the file.

How to Securely Send a File with Encryption

You don’t need a background in cybersecurity to securely send a file with end-to-end encryption. A few practical options:

1. Use a platform built for end-to-end encryption. The best tools generate and exchange keys automatically, so you upload a file and the encryption happens without any extra steps. Tools like Filot are the simplest route for regulated teams sending files regularly.
2. Encrypt it yourself first. Free tools like 7-Zip or VeraCrypt let you password-protect a file with AES-256 encryption before sending it through any channel, including regular email. Recommended if you’re comfortable being hands-on with your file’s security.
3. Use encrypted email, where it’s available. Regular email is encrypted in transit but not end-to-end, meaning your provider can still technically read it. Services like ProtonMail offer true end-to-end encryption between users of the same service. Recommended if you’re already within the Proton ecosystem.
4. Send smaller files through Signal. Signal encrypts everything end-to-end by default and handles individual documents up to 100MB, which covers most single-file transfers. Not recommended for regulated professional work.

A Few Habits Worth Building

Encryption protects a file’s contents, but it can’t stop a file from going to the wrong person. Here are a few tips for working securely that you can implement today.

1. Before sending anything sensitive, double check the recipient’s address.
2. If you’re password-protecting a file, send that password through a separate channel, like a phone call or text, never in the same message as the file.
3. If your organization handles regulated data regularly, look for tools that pair encryption with access controls and activity logs. Encryption alone rarely satisfies every requirement your industry has.

Why use Filot to send files securely?

Easy to implement, easy to use

Filot guides you through the onboarding process from start to finish. You can download and begin using Filot in five minutes or less, without ever needing to speak to a sales representative. Filot’s interface has been designed from the ground-up to be easy for everyone to use, regardless of technical experience.

Automatic end-to-end encryption

End-to-end encryption is the only method that keeps a file unreadable to everyone but the sender and recipient, including the platform hosting the transfer. Filot comes with end-to-end encryption built in, protecting all of your files the moment you upload them. Learn more about end-to-end encryption.

Built for compliance

Filot automatically records every action taken across the desktop app and web browser, including by users outside your organization, giving you unshakable transparency into your business. Learn more about Filot’s tamper-proof audit logs.