Outlook 2016 Intermediate/Advanced

Outlook 2016

Lesson – Setting Message and Security Options

As messages travel through different servers on their way to being delivered, you want to be sure that no one other than the intended recipient can view your message and that messages you receive are really from the sender. Outlook employs several security measures to ensure privacy and authenticate that a message is from the sender and has not been tampered with.

One method is to use a digital signature. A digital signature (or digital ID) is an electronic encryption-based stamp of authentication. It confirms that the document was sent by the signer and was not altered. It is easy to think of a digital signature as a wax seal on a document. If you receive a document with a wax seal intact, then you know that no one has tampered with the document. If you receive a document and the seal is broken, the document may have been altered.

For a digital signature to be authentic, a digital certificate is acquired from a third-party vendor. When a digital ID is issued, the owner is sent both a certificate, which is the public key, and a private key. The private key stays on the owner’s computer. It’s possible to have multiple digital certificates.

U SING D IGITAL C ERTIFICATES  D ISCUSSION

Users who wish to exchange secure email, send each other messages with their digital certificate (public key) attached. The key is attached by digitally signing the message. After receiving a digitally signed message, add the certificate information to your contact list by opening the message, right-clicking the name in the From field and selecting the Add to Outlook Contacts command. After adding the certificate information, save and close the Contact window, selecting the Update new information from this contact to the existing one option if the contact already exists. The certificate appears in the Certificates page when you open the Contact window for the contact.

It is unnecessary to exchange digital certificates if you are exchanging messages through a Microsoft Exchange Server to which the administrator set up security files.

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