To protect a message from being read by an unauthorized user and prevent sensitive data being leaked out, emails containing sensitive or confidential information must be encrypted or encrypted with additional permissions.

 

There are different options available for encrypting an email. This summary provides a brief explanation of your encryption options:

  1. Encrypt-Only: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and the recipients can do anything they want with the email and attachments.
  1. Do Not Forward: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and the recipients can read, edit, and reply. Recipients cannot forward, print, or copy content (including Office file attachments).
  1. Connor Group, Inc – Confidential: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and only recipients that are in the firm and on the email can read, edit, and reply. Recipients cannot forward, print, or copy content (including Office file attachments).
  1. Connor Group, Inc – Confidential View Only: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and only recipients that are in the firm and on the email can read. Recipients cannot reply, forward, print, edit, or copy content (including Office file attachments).


Each encryption options with additional details:

  1. Encrypt-Only: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and the recipients can do anything they want with the email and attachments.
    • When would I use this?

                                                               i.      When you want to protect an email and guarantee that the email thread will continue to be encrypted.

                                                             ii.      When you want the recipient to be able to: reply and add recipients, forward the email, edit or copy the contents, save attachments, or print.

                                                           iii.      When you want restrict the recipient from being able to save a full copy of the email.

  • How does this work?

                                                               i.      If the recipient is another Office 365 user and using Outlook, Outlook on the Web, or Outlook on their phone, they will be able to open the encrypted e-mail without any additional steps.

                                                             ii.      If the recipient is outside of Office 365 (e.g. Gmail) or using a different email program to read the message (e.g. Apple Mail) they will receive an e-mail with a link to  "Read the message”, which is securely stored on the Office 365 servers. 

    1. The recipient will need to sign-in with their Google account credentials. If sent to another e-mail service provider (e.g. Comcast), the recipient will need to sign in with a Microsoft account or one-time access code.
    2. We have an FAQ that goes into greater detail found here:
      https://insider.connorgp.com/ConnorGroup/FAQ/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=223
  • Example

                                                               i.      You are sending confidential information to a recipient (internal or external) and you want them to be able to freely collaborate with the email and attachments, but enforce secure transit.

 

  1. Do Not Forward: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and the recipients can read, edit, and reply. Recipients cannot forward, print, or copy content (including Office file attachments).

When would I use this?

                                                               i.      When you want to protect an email and guarantee that the email thread will continue to be encrypted.

                                                             ii.      When you want the recipient to be able to: reply, edit the contents, and save attachments.

                                                           iii.      When you want restrict the recipient from being able to: add recipients, forward the email, copy the contents, print, or save a full copy of the email.

                                                           iv.      Example:

    1. You are sending confidential information to a recipient and you want them to be able to fully collaborate with only with the folks on the email.
      1. The content cannot be copied outside of the email or the attachments. They can reply to the email, editing it as they need. They can save the Office attachments and edit and attach to the email thread.
      2. If they attach them to a new email with additional recipients, the additional recipients will not be able to open the Office documents.

                                                             v.      Example of a Word attached document when Do Not Forward was applied:

 

  1. Connor Group, Inc – Confidential: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and only recipients that are in the firm and on the email can read, edit, and reply. Recipients cannotforward, print, or copy content (including Office file attachments).
    1. When would I use this?

                                                               i.      When you want to protect an email and guarantee that the email thread will continue to be encrypted.

                                                             ii.      When you want the recipient to be able to: reply, edit the contents, save attachments, add recipients, or forward the email.

                                                           iii.      When you want restrict the recipient from being able to: copy the contents, print, save a full copy of the email, add recipients outside the firm.

                                                           iv.      Example of a Word attached document when Confidential was applied is the same as Do Not Forward, but requires the recipient to be in the firm and on the email.

    1. Example:

                                                               i.      You want people only in the firm and on the email to be able to collaborate on the email and Office attachments with company secrets.

          1. Only people in the firm and on the email can read and edit.
          2. If the attachments are saved, only people in the firm that were on the email can open and edit them.

                                                             ii.      If you were to add anyone outside the firm to the email, after they click “Read the message” they’d get an error reading the message as they are not in the firm and on the email:

 

  1. Connor Group, Inc – Confidential View Only: Ensure the email is encrypted during transit and only recipients that are in the firm and on the email can read. Recipients cannot reply, forward, print, edit, or copy content (including Office file attachments).
  • When would I use this?

                                                               i.      When you want to protect an email and guarantee that the email will be encrypted.

                                                             ii.      When you want the recipient to be able to: read the contents, save Office attachments as read-only.

                                                           iii.      When you want restrict the recipient from being able to do anything but read/delete the email and save the attachments as read-only.

  • Example:

                                                               i.      Announcing an updated internal policy document that has company secrets.

      1. Only people in the firm and on the email can read.
      2. If the attachments are saved, only people in the firm that were on the email can open and read them.

To enable encryption on an email please reply to or open a new email message and click on the "Options" tab at the top (Note: you may need to "Pop Out" the message in order to see the Options menu). Click the "Encrypt" button and select the encryption level you wish to apply to this message.

Continue writing your email as normal.