Filter
Top Products
123
C
H
5
E-MAIL
OVERVIEW OF E-MAIL SECURITY
You can help prevent impersonation, tampering, and eavesdropping
when sending e-mail messages from your Outlook e-mail account by
using Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) digital
signatures and encryption.
A signature helps prevent impersonation and tampering. Impersonation
occurs when a hacker sends e-mail messages and pretends to be
someone else. Tampering occurs when a hacker intercepts your
e-mail messages and changes the message without the recipient’s
knowledge.
Signing a message applies the sender’s certificate (and public key) to
the message. This proves to the recipient that the message is from the
sender and not from an imposter.
Encryption helps prevent eavesdropping, which occurs when a hacker
intercepts and reads your e-mail messages. Using a cryptographic
message format such as S/MIME for encryption helps improve
e-mail privacy because it converts plain, readable text of the message
into cipher (scrambled) text. The sender’s messaging program uses
the recipient’s public key to encrypt (lock) the e-mail message and
attachments. Only the recipient who has the private key that matches
the public key you used to encrypt the message can decipher
(unscramble) the message.
A certificate is a digital means of proving your identity. When you send
a digitally signed message, you are sending your certificate and public
key. Certificates can expire or be revoked.
S/MIME encryption and digital signatures for Windows Mobile-
based devices are available only with Exchange Server 2003
Service Pack 2 or a later version that supports S/MIME.
If you aren’t using one of these products, or have not yet
synchronized, these options are unavailable.