--- title: Is Fax More Secure Than Email? What T.38 Gets Right | T38Fax Blog description: Fax is more secure than email for architectural reasons. T.38 preserves real-time, point-to-point transmission with no intermediate storage. image: https://blog.t38fax.com/hubfs/featured-image-fax-vs-email-security-1200x630.png --- [Skip to main content](https://blog.t38fax.com/is-fax-more-secure-than-email-what-t.38-gets-right#blog-content) [![T38Fax](https://www.t38fax.com/images/Logo_Large.svg)](https://www.t38fax.com/) - Who We Serve - [Enterprise Fax Servers RightFax, HylaFAX, GFI FaxMaker](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/enterprise-fax-servers/) - [Voice Service Providers T.38 offload for ITSPs & UCaaS](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/voice-service-providers/) - [Business Fax Connectivity ATAs, IP-PBXs, fax machines](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/business-fax-connectivity/) - [Our Solution](https://www.t38fax.com/power-t38/) - [Why T38Fax](https://www.t38fax.com/why-t38fax/) - [Pricing](https://www.t38fax.com/pricing/) - Resources - [Compatibility List T.38-certified devices & setup guides](https://www.t38fax.com/compatibility/) - [Knowledge Base Setup guides, FAQs & troubleshooting](https://helpdesk.t38fax.com/hc/en-us/) - [Blog Fax technology & industry insights](https://blog.t38fax.com/) - [Security & Compliance HIPAA, SOC 2, encryption options](https://www.t38fax.com/security/) - Company - [About Us Our story and team](https://www.t38fax.com/about-us/) - [Testimonials See our customer reviews](https://www.t38fax.com/testimonials/) - [Partners Reseller & integration partnerships](https://www.t38fax.com/partners/) - [Contact Us Sales, support & general enquiries](https://www.t38fax.com/contact/) - [Careers Open positions at T38Fax](https://www.t38fax.com/careers/) [Customer Portal](https://my.t38fax.com/) [Start Free Trial](https://my.t38fax.com/signup) - Who We Serve - [Enterprise Fax Servers](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/enterprise-fax-servers/) - [Voice Service Providers](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/voice-service-providers/) - [Business Fax Connectivity](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/business-fax-connectivity/) - [Our Solution](https://www.t38fax.com/power-t38/) - [Why T38Fax](https://www.t38fax.com/why-t38fax/) - [Pricing](https://www.t38fax.com/pricing/) - Resources - [Compatibility List](https://www.t38fax.com/compatibility/) - [Knowledge Base](https://helpdesk.t38fax.com/hc/en-us/) - [Blog](https://blog.t38fax.com/) - [Security & Compliance](https://www.t38fax.com/security/) - Company - [About Us](https://www.t38fax.com/about-us/) - [Testimonials](https://www.t38fax.com/testimonials/) - [Partners](https://www.t38fax.com/partners/) - [Contact Us](https://www.t38fax.com/contact/) - [Careers](https://www.t38fax.com/careers/) - [Customer Portal](https://my.t38fax.com/) [Start Free Trial](https://my.t38fax.com/signup) [All Posts](https://blog.t38fax.com) Tech Tips # Is Fax More Secure Than Email? What T.38 Gets Right [Josh Primiano](https://blog.t38fax.com/author/josh-primiano) · October 15, 2026 [Post](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.t38fax.com%2Fis-fax-more-secure-than-email-what-t.38-gets-right&text=Is+Fax+More+Secure+Than+Email%3F+What+T.38+Gets+Right) [Share](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.t38fax.com%2Fis-fax-more-secure-than-email-what-t.38-gets-right) In 2025, 170 healthcare organizations reported email-related breaches to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In a separate Paubox survey of healthcare IT leaders, 58% said their organization had been breached through email in the past 24 months, and 23% said it had happened more than once. Encryption controls only work when people use them. In the same survey, more than a third of organizations that require a portal login to read encrypted email said clinical staff bypass it. That raises a question we hear often from the organizations we work with: is fax actually more secure? The short answer is yes, and the reasons are architectural, not sentimental. But the full answer depends on what kind of fax you're talking about. ## How Email Actually Moves When you send an email, the message leaves your mail server, passes through one or more relay servers, and lands on the recipient's mail server. Each relay is operated by a different organization with its own security posture. Copies may exist on the sending device, the sending mail server, every relay in between, the receiving mail server, and the receiving device. Each hop is a potential interception point. Each stored copy is a potential breach target. Even "encrypted" email has failure modes that most users never see. TLS encryption protects messages in transit between servers, but only if both ends support it. When the receiving server doesn't support modern TLS, many email platforms deliver the message unencrypted without warning the sender. SPF and DMARC authentication can prevent spoofing, but misconfiguration rates are high. Paubox's 2026 Healthcare Email Security Report, which analyzed those 170 breaches, found that 74% of the breached organizations lacked effective DMARC enforcement. The core problem is structural: email is a store-and-forward system. Your message is copied and stored at every stage of its journey. Securing email means securing every server, every device, and every user account in the chain. One weak link compromises the entire transmission. ## How Fax Moves Over the Phone Network A traditional fax call works differently. Your fax machine dials the recipient's number, the two machines negotiate a direct connection using the T.30 protocol, and the document is transmitted page by page as audio tones over the PSTN. At the end of the call, a confirmation page prints. There is no intermediate storage. No relay servers holding copies. No inbox sitting on a network waiting to be phished. The document travels from point A to point B for the duration of a single phone call, and when the call ends, the transmission data doesn't persist on any infrastructure in between. This is why regulated industries still rely on fax for sensitive documents. The security isn't a feature that was added on top. It's a property of how the transmission works. ## What Changes When Fax Moves Over IP The transition from analog phone lines to internet-based voice infrastructure raises a fair question: if fax data now travels over IP networks, does it lose the security properties that made it trustworthy in the first place? It depends on the protocol. T.38 is an ITU standard designed specifically to carry fax transmissions over IP networks while preserving the real-time, point-to-point model of a PSTN fax call. When a fax is sent over T.38, the fax image data is packetized and carried by UDPTL, a transport protocol purpose-built for fax, between the two endpoints. Error Correction Mode (ECM) detects corrupted pages during transmission and requests retransmission before the recipient ever sees the document. The call completes, the data terminates, and nothing is stored on any intermediate server. Compare that with cloud fax services. Most of them work by converting your document into an image file in a data center, storing it on a server, and delivering it to the recipient as an email attachment or a download link from a web portal. That's store-and-forward. It reintroduces the same attack surface you were trying to avoid by choosing fax over email in the first place: intermediate storage, multiple copies, and server-side access controls. T.38 doesn't work that way. The data passes through and terminates. Your carrier never has a copy of your document sitting in a database. ## Where the Carrier Matters Not all carriers that claim "T.38 support" handle fax the same way. Some SIP providers offer T.38 as a passthrough to an upstream carrier whose infrastructure they don't control. Your fax traffic passes through their network, gets handed to another carrier, and terminates somewhere else. If something fails, your provider can't diagnose it because they don't own the system that handled your call. Others disable ECM to reduce call duration and processing load. Without ECM, a corrupted page arrives at the destination without either side knowing the content is wrong. The transmission "succeeds." The confirmation page prints. The document is garbled. We wrote about this in detail in [ECM: T.38's Dirty Little Secret](https://blog.t38fax.com/blog/ecm-t38-dirty-little-secret). A fax-native carrier operates differently. T38Fax built its own T.38 stack and places its media gateways inside carrier networks. Your equipment talks to our gateways on every call. ECM runs on every transmission, without exception. Fax data passes through our infrastructure and terminates. We never store it. For organizations that want encrypted transport on top of the transmission-level security T.38 already provides, we offer IPSec VPN tunnels at no additional charge. Private dedicated circuits and direct cloud connections are available for stricter requirements. ## What This Means for Compliance HIPAA permits the use of fax for transmitting protected health information (PHI), provided that reasonable safeguards are in place. The real-time, never-stored nature of T.38 transmission simplifies the compliance question considerably. There is no document repository on the carrier's side to secure, audit, or defend against breach. The data transits and terminates. T38Fax is SOC 2 certified and HIPAA compliant. We provide BAAs on request. Full details are on our [Security & Compliance page](https://www.t38fax.com/security/). For enterprise fax server environments running RightFax, HylaFAX Enterprise, GFI FaxMaker, or XMedius, the compliance posture is straightforward: your fax server sends and receives through a dedicated T.38 SIP trunk that never stores your documents in transit. The transmission is real-time, point-to-point, and confirmed page by page with ECM. That's a simpler compliance story than any email system or cloud fax service can offer. If you're evaluating T.38 for a compliance-sensitive environment, our knowledge base covers the network details your security team will ask about, including [recommended firewall settings](https://helpdesk.t38fax.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053046071-Recommended-Firewall-Settings) and [our IP addresses and port usage](https://helpdesk.t38fax.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053046211-T38Fax-IP-Addresses-and-Port-Usage). [See how Power-T.38 connects to enterprise fax servers](https://www.t38fax.com/solutions/enterprise-fax-servers/), or [start a 30-day free trial](https://my.t38fax.com/signup) and test it against your own environment. [Tech Tips](https://blog.t38fax.com/topic/tech-tips) Ready to fix your fax? 30-day free trial. $25 credit included. No contracts. [Start Free Trial](https://my.t38fax.com/signup) [Request a Quote](https://www.t38fax.com/contact/) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. Subscribe to Email Updates ### Subscribe Here! ### Top Posts ### Posts by Topic - [Interoperability (24)](https://blog.t38fax.com/topic/interoperability) - [Insider (13)](https://blog.t38fax.com/topic/insider) - [Tech Tips (6)](https://blog.t38fax.com/topic/tech-tips) [![T38Fax](https://www.t38fax.com/images/Logo_Large.svg)](https://www.t38fax.com/) The fax carrier built by fax people. Reliable T.38 fax over IP at scale. 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