Encryption Services - Quick Start Guide

1. All aspects of Encrypted Mail services are handled through the Secure Email Gateway (SEG). The SEG may be accessed via any web browser at the following address: https://securemail.myhostedservice.com//

2. Login using the administrative credentials supplied for the mail encryption services. The credentials were supplied in the service welcome letter, and are unique to the SEG.
To retrieve lost credentials either click the, "Forgot Password," link or email support@itsolutionsnow.com with the account holder name, domain name, and last four digits of the billing credit card. The default password can be changed after successful access. 

1. Email by default, is not encrypted with secure email services. Mail filtering and encryption is defined through the policy, or rule creation, established in the SEG. This means that all email (incoming/outgoing) is compared against active policy to determine what specific actions are taken. The policies themselves are conditional based that match email content against three list types:

1. Recipient/Sender Groups: Lists that contain email addresses. (More Info.)
2. Keywords/Dictionaries: Contain specific words, or character sets. (More Info.)
3. Regular Expressions: Can be created or modified from the existing sample list. These lists use a formal language to find specific characters, words, or patterns of characters. Example of a Regular Expression lists include credit cards, drivers license numbers, and social security numbers. (More Info.)

When a policy has a conditional triggered the resultant action taken against the email is predicated upon the action defined within the policy. If no action is taken against the email, it is then compared against the next defined policy until either all policies are exhausted, or an action is taken. Once an action is taken against an email, no further policy comparisons will be made. It is important, mainly for analytical purposes, to arrange policy in a manner that emphasizes filtering on the severity of flagged content (see: Prioritize Mail Policies).

For more information on policy creation please review the article; Create Mail Policies.

2. In some cases a user from the initial composition of a message  acknowledges the need for a message to be encrypted. A message can be encrypted at the user's discretion by installing the Outlook Encryption Add-In. After the add-in is installed, encryption can be implemented on message-by-message basis. However for the SEG to recognize the presence of the plug-in request for encryption, the following policy must be added:

Outlook Plug-in Policy

Conditional	Value
IF	Header
Contains	Gateway Plug-in Header
Encrypt	Auto

With email encryption, all email activity for encrypted accounts is monitored and can be reviewed by accessing the reporting section of the SEG. In the process of creating mail policies (Create Mail Policies) certain metrics are defined to help differentiate and emphasize email infringement of policy. Those metrics ultimately determine the precedence of the information displayed in the reports, and the admin's ability to extrapolate any useful assessment.

There are two primary report types Summary Reports, and Detailed Reports, that provide different reporting views as their names imply. View either article for more information.

Email policies are designed to cater to the security needs of an organization. The policy examples provided are intended to represent general policies, and are not necessarily well suited for use in an organization. When creating policy carefully review the requirements, and daily email use of a company.

1. Attachments
   1. Filter all office communication with a regular expression
      1. Track, log, or encrypt any sent message with an attachment.
      2. Encrypt any email that contains a sensitive subject (quarter report.xls, 401k.xls)
      3. Block any message with an attachment being sent to an untrusted, or not work related domain (block any attachment sent to *.gmail.com)
   2. Keyword & regular expression filtering
      1. Encrypt email that may contain customer information such as; number or account numbers, passwords, credit card or other sensitive ID numbers.
      2. Return a message due to content that may include profanity or other inappropriate material, sensitive document or product names sent to outside domains, any external domain, or emails with specify URLS (Youtube links are blocked or tracked).
2. Secure Communications
   1. Encrypt regular communications between parties, such as to a partner (cases for a law firm), or to any public domain (AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. addresses).
   2. Encrypt any email with target keywords in the message body (private in the subject line for example).
3. Require Compression
   1. Return messages with attachments that aren't compressed.
4. Tracking
   1. Track messages to email providers (AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.).
   2. External emails that mention corporate products or services.
   3. Profanity, or other inappropriate content.
   4. The total documents sent externally (create a policy per document type).
   5. Non-work related URLS in emails.