When you used to send letters, you marked them “FAO” or just relied on the fact that because it had Mr Smiths name on it, only Mr Smith would open it. This worked most of the time. When it didn’t you sent it special delivery or by some other secure means to ensure it was received and read only by its recipient.
Some time ago now, some bright sparks figured this would be a “nice to have” for email too. It’s very easy to intercept email as it travels through the information super highway. And it’s no longer just the concern of government agencies and the holders of very sensitive personal information either.
Data protection is every business’s concern. And the concern gets greater by the day, especially when you consider how much information is shared electronically in almost every company organisation.
That’s where email encryption comes in. Most email encryption services work in a similar way, but we favour WatchGuard XCS SecureMail and here’s how it works:
- A sender from within the organisation triggers an email.
- The email is processed within the company’s email environment and the email is routed to the WatchGuard XCS appliance for scanning.
- The email passes through the XCS data loss prevention engine’s pattern and content filters, which scans the data and matches it against pre-defined company and regulatory policies. Each message is checked to determine if it needs to be encrypted, quarantined, bounced, or handled in other ways as established by the policies created up by the Administrator.
- If the message meets the requirements of a specific encryption policy, the XCS SecureMail engine communicates with the Voltage SecureMail Cloud to generate encryption keys, any branding data, and creates the notification message. XCS SecureMail uses Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) technology which generates encryption keys based on the sender and recipient email addresses. The message is signed with the sender’s public key and is securely pushed by the WatchGuard XCS appliance to the intended recipient.
- The recipient opens the attachment, and, if it is his or her first time receiving an encrypted email via XCS SecureMail, he or she completes a one-time registration and authenticates his or her email address.
- Once the recipient has authenticated with the service, the private session key is issued based on the recipient’s identity.
- The entire email, including attachments, is decrypted and the recipient can now view the message securely.
By now you can probably see why email encryption benefits you and your business, but here are some further benefits if you’re still not convinced.
Security
The WatchGuard XCS SecureMail Email Encryption solution is tightly integrated into the WatchGuard XCS email security appliances to enable instant-on security for confidential, regulated and business-prudent communications.
Easy
WatchGuard XCS SecureMail Email Encryption provides an easy-to-use, secure and cost-effective encryption solution for enterprises that do not want the burdens and costs associated with traditional encryption deployments and administration, but require message security for privacy and compliance.
No certificates
The WatchGuard XCS SecureMail Email Encryption solution does not use clients or certificates so it does not require a pre-exchange of credentials, nor the burdens of older message encryption techniques such as Certificate Authorities, Open PGP, S/MIME and other client and certificate based systems that are costly and do not scale.
Mobile
Agnostic to the email and OS environment, XCS SecureMail Email Encryption allows encrypted messages to be sent to any email recipient at any time, and it can be securely delivered to mobile devices like the Blackberry, or iPhone.
Email Encryption is available through WatchGuard’s XCS products. For more information on the products click here, or alternatively contact Rockford IT, WatchGuard Expert partners on 0333 101 6000 or email info@watchguardservices.co.uk.