How to Send Secure Email in Outlook

With the increased need for secure communication, it’s important to know how to send secure emails. Sending secure emails through Outlook is a great way to keep your messages safe and private.

Let’s discuss how to send secure email in Outlook with ease. We will also look at some of the benefits of sending secure email, so you can decide if it is a good choice for your own needs.

Why You Should Encrypt Email

Before we dive into how to send secure email in Outlook, we should probably talk about why it’s important to do so. Email encryption allows you to send and receive emails that will only be read by the intended audience. There have been dozens and dozens of PR nightmares generated by emails, for everyone from politicians and celebrities to your coworkers, family, and friends.

There are several benefits to email encryption, like:

• Privacy
• Efficiency
• Authentication

Everyone likes to have control over what information of theirs is public or private. There are also lots of reasons why privacy is integral to your personal and business dealings. And that privacy is getting harder to find, especially in a world full of cameras, device monitoring, and social media.

Compliance is another hot topic, and more and more industries are leaning into compliance and regulatory certifications to combat the growing cybersecurity threats we are experiencing every year.

And when you set up secure email in Outlook, it’s more cost-effective and efficient for your business. By securing your email within the Outlook program, you don’t have to integrate or purchase a third-party or supplemental encryption program to bridge the gaps.

Authentication is another big benefit of securing your email. I think we speak for everyone when we say we’ve had enough spam calls and emails to last longer than our lifetime. When you use secure email settings, you ensure that the messages being sent and received are authentic and necessary.

How to Send Secure Email in Outlook: Two Methods

Office 365 and Microsoft Office as tools have been embedded into the digital workspace for almost as long as the digital workspace has existed. And they continue to endure because they are constantly offering better and more customizable options for their users.

There are a few different options when it comes to securing your Office 365 and Outlook emails, from built-in options to simple add-ons. Let’s go through some of the best ones.

Secure with Certificates

One of the older methods of securing your email is doing so with certificates through the S/MIME protocol.

The Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension protocol is a method of email encryption that only works if both the sender and recipient have installed and shared their certificates.

To use this method, you must acquire your email encryption certificate from a CA (certificate authority), import it into Outlook, and share it with your intended recipients. The email security certificate is not the same as an SSL certificate.

To import the certificate:

• Click File
• Click Options, then Trust Center.
• Click Import.Export (beneath “Digital IDs”)

To send a secure email, you must also have the intended recipient’s certificate. You’ll have to open the message sent from your recipient with the certificate and then right-click to add to Contacts (you can also edit existing contacts). Next, click Certificates (in the top ribbon of Contact card) and select the correct certificate. Once done, you can start composing your message.

Then you’ll Click Options, and then More Options > Security Settings. This will open a pop-up window, and you must select “Encrypt message content and attachments.”

Secure with Office 365

If certificates seem like more work than they’re worth, let’s go through the Microsoft 365 method for securing emails. In order to use this method, the sender must have Microsoft 365 Message Encryption, which is included in the Office 365 Enterprise E3 license.

This method is also known as the Information Rights Management method. To use this method, follow these instructions.

In your email message, click Options, and then Encrypt. This prompts you to choose the type of restrictions you want to implement, like Encrypt-Only or Do Not Forward. It’s important to note that the Encrypt-Only option will only work for those who also use Exchange Online.

For single message encryption, go to File > Properties and click Secure Settings. Then select “Encrypt message contents and attachments,” and send!

TO encrypt all of your messages, go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings. Once there, find the Email Security tab, nested under Encrypted Email, and check the box next to “Encrypt contents and attachments for outgoing messages.”

Email Security is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

There are still millions of emails being sent and received on behalf of your personal and business accounts. Learning how to send secure email in Outlook is just the tip of the iceberg. The prevalence of email tampering and cybersecurity risks that can be hidden within email content means that you can’t ignore the importance of a well-rounded IT program any longer.

That’s why Verve offers managed IT services in an all-you-can-eat service structure. Tell us what you need, and we can tailor our services to protect your business and keep operations running smoothly no matter what threats may arise.

Reach out to us today and let us know how we can help.