Earlier this month, Mailgun announced that they will be depreciating TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 in favor of the more secure TLS version 1.2.
Instead, they’ll be supporting TLS 1.2 and above. Mailgun users will need to take action to make sure they can continue to send emails by being compliant with Mailgun’s new measures.
In this post, we’ll fill you in on what Mailgun is doing, what TLS is, and what this announcement means for users of the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
What’s Changing With Mailgun?
As of March 8th, 2021, Mailgun will no longer allow TLS connections with versions 1.0 and 1.1.
It’s important to note that your TLS version is determined by your hosting provider, not by WP Mail SMTP. The WP Mail SMTP plugin will not affect your sending by this depreciation.
But, we want to make sure you don’t encounter any issues with sending email, so read ahead for details on how to make sure you don’t experience an interruption after these changes take place.
What Is TLS?
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is an encryption protocol that protects Internet communications. It’s a form of digital communication security that replaced SSL back in 1999.
TLS encrypts Internet data. It helps to secure private and sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and emails. This provides stronger privacy and data sharing between two or more communicating computer applications.
For a more in-depth look, check out this helpful documentation on TLS Connection Control from Mailgun.
Why Deprecate TLS 1.0 and 1.1?
The older TLS versions are known to have security vulnerabilities. To keep their mailer as secure as possible, Mailgun has decided to deprecate TLS 1.0 and 1.1.
TLS 1.0 came out in the late ’90s and has had its fair share of issues. So when it comes to TLS deprecation, many tools have and will continue to phase out these older versions.
For example, In March 2020, all four major internet browser providers ended their support of TLS 1.0 and 1.1.
Since Mailgun has announced they’ll be ending TLS 1.0 and 1.1 support in March of 2021, now’s a great time to check and make sure your environment supports 1.2 so you don’t experience any issues with sending email.
How Do I Check My TLS Version?
If you’re using the Mailgun mailer and you aren’t sure if your environment supports TLS 1.2, now is the time to look into it.
To check your TLS version and make sure you’re using version 1.2 or higher, you can use this free tool.
If you’re seeing that you’re on TLS versions 1.0 or 1.1, contact your hosting provider to update it.
If you don’t want to use this tool, your hosting provider support team should also be able to provide you with this information, so we suggest reaching out to them. Make sure to ask them to update TLS to at least v1.2 if they haven’t done this already.
Has WP Mail SMTP Upgraded to TLS 1.2?
WP Mail SMTP is 100% up to date with the Mailgun API. No changes to the WP Mail SMTP plugin is needed. That’s because your TLS version is determined by your hosting server.
WP Mail SMTP uses the best integration solution available. Our Mailgun mailer is using the Mailgun API to send messages to their system using an HTTPS protocol.
WP Mail SMTP does not specify which TLS version to use. That’s something that your environment (server) is responsible for. Even as mailer providers update their features, we’ll always take WordPress security seriously and work hard to offer a secure plugin that integrates seamlessly with all the popular SMTP and PHP mailers.
Next Steps
We hope this post helped clarify Mailgun’s 1.0 and 1.1 depreciation and how it will impact WP Mail SMTP users.
If you have any questions about this change, please feel free to get in touch. We’re here for you and our support team is always happy to provide any additional insight that can help keep your business running smoothly online.
Jared and the WP Mail SMTP Team