Outlook 2016 - Free Email Encryption Solution?

[SavedZelda]

Hi all,

 

Our hand was forced by the local authority to begin using Egress Switch to send/receive encrypted emails. Egress is great but unfortunately the school I work at have next to no budget available to license any new software.

 

Are there any good free and trustworthy solutions out there? We just need an Outlook plugin but struggling to find one.

 

Has anyone got any recommendations?

 

Many thanks!

[Sibrows]

If your using Office365 its a straightforward feature that can be turned on.

 

I realise that you can use Outlook with other mail providers and what I'm suggesting isn't an Outlook plugin. So please feel free to ignore my comment

[timbo343]

Have a look at this document.. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/techgenix.com/office-365-message-encryption-part2/amp/

 

I have it set up so that if the word encrypt is in the subject and the message is sent out of the organisation it encrypts the message. Have used this with a few organisarion recently.

 

Trying to get others to understand is like pulling teeth.

[Sibrows]

I followed this article: http://www.edugeek.net/blogs/marshall_it/2203-office-365-e-mail-encryption.html

 

Which has the lovely bit of regex to spot UPNs

[SavedZelda]

Thanks all, apologies I should have been a little more specific... the place I work uses Office 2016 as a standalone product and doesn’t use the 365 package, it’s using on-site Exchange 2016.

 

I wondered if there was a free/open-source third party plugin for Outlook that encrypts emails and requires the recipient to enter a password (or some other security measure).

[timbo343]

Would this help? https://support.office.com/en-us/article/encrypt-email-messages-373339cb-bf1a-4509-b296-802a39d801dc

[chazzy2501]

Well, the first thing I tell people is that there is no such thing as encrypted emails. An unhelpful term misused to confuse normies. Usually they want a safe way to move encrypted documents over email (rather that the whole body of the email) I discussed this with SLT and agreed that they can encrypt office documents easily (using password protection) and attach them to emails as usual. This would require no special training, plugins and other software. Just to phone the contact and tell them the password.

[SavedZelda]

Would this help? https://support.office.com/en-us/article/encrypt-email-messages-373339cb-bf1a-4509-b296-802a39d801dc

 

This looks promising, thank you! I will give this a try.

[SavedZelda]

Well, the first thing I tell people is that there is no such thing as encrypted emails. An unhelpful term misused to confuse normies. Usually they want a safe way to move encrypted documents over email (rather that the whole body of the email) I discussed this with SLT and agreed that they can encrypt office documents easily (using password protection) and attach them to emails as usual. This would require no special training, plugins and other software. Just to phone the contact and tell them the password.

 

I completely agree and this is something I've said to SLT but I swear they think I'm just being difficult about it!

[mowgli82]

If you're on LGFL then you can now get free Egress licences as part of your broadband package

[TomHD]

Our county has just stopped using Egress so we have now switched to password protecting the attached file, emailing it and then communicating the password over a different channel. Haven't had any complaints from uses yet!

[chazzy2501]

Our county has just stopped using Egress so we have now switched to password protecting the attached file, emailing it and then communicating the password over a different channel. Haven't had any complaints from uses yet!

 

This obviously follows what I said earlier but I think some kind of education for users of email is that (I say again) no such thing as encrypted email... Encryption in spite of email, via email, through email. All require a solution to the dreaded authentication problem and usually bespoke software.

 

I've also found that our photocopiers (that email) can do ePDFs they prompt for a password and send which is really slick for physical documents. (maybe obvious to some but again no special software to email encrypted PDFs straight from a printer)

 

 

Sorry I rant but feel strongly about trying to accommodate users based on misinformed buzz words that over simplify. Next thing I'll hear is that xyz have done it and its great or the new £1300 iPhone can do it why not us?

 

sorry going off topic..

[supportman]

Just set this up on our office 365 with a message rule, its actually incredibly simple and works very well.

 

Just create a new mail flow rule for "the subject includes" text containing the word "ENCRYPT:" and make sure its applying microsoft office encryption as the action. Just choose 'encrypt' from the templates.

 

Basically the user has to go to a website and login with a microsoft account or get a 1 time passcode. Works very well in my tests.

Edited October 18, 2018 by supportman

[FishCustard]

Just set this up on our office 365 with a message rule, its actually incredibly simple and works very well.

 

Just create a new mail flow rule for "the subject includes" text containing the word "ENCRYPT:" and make sure its applying microsoft office encryption as the action. Just choose 'encrypt' from the templates.

 

Basically the user has to go to a website and login with a microsoft account or get a 1 time passcode. Works very well in my tests.

This is what we do - if "*encrypt*" is in the subject or body it gets encrypted. We have problems with certain pond life at the LA that say they can't work out how to open them, despite the fact they did it each time before after sending the guide. Other than that, it works wonderfully.

[MYK-IT]

Out of interest, what are people's experiences of using Microsoft Office 365 (OME v2) encryption? Specifically in relation to the success rate of external recipients accessing the (contents of the) email?

 

I only ask (as we had OMEv1 years ago - which required OME viewer etc) and now been on the newer encryption method for some time, but we still get members of staff claiming that they have sent encrypted emails but the recipient can't access them (for whatever reason - usual vague description!). This ranges from banking organisations, examination boards to other schools etc. For some reason, they expect me to sort out IT issues of a multi-million pound banking organisation....

 

In the interim, i have just advised, as @chazzy2501 mentioned above, that the alternative is to compile content of email within a password protected document (e.g. word, excel etc) and email it to them, then separately send (or agreed) password.

Edited October 18, 2018 by MYK-IT