Pantech Matrix Pro manual Overview of E-MAIL Security

E-MAIL

OVERVIEW OF E-MAIL SECURITY

You can help prevent impersonation, tampering, and eavesdropping when sending e-mail messages from your Outlook e-mail account by using Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) digital signatures and encryption.

A signature helps prevent impersonation and tampering. Impersonation occurs when a hacker sends e-mail messages and pretends to be someone else. Tampering occurs when a hacker intercepts your e-mail messages and changes the message without the recipient’s knowledge.

Signing a message applies the sender’s certificate (and public key) to the message. This proves to the recipient that the message is from the sender and not from an imposter.

Encryption helps prevent eavesdropping, which occurs when a hacker intercepts and reads your e-mail messages. Using a cryptographic message format such as S/MIME for encryption helps improve e- mail privacy because it converts plain, readable text of the message into cipher (scrambled) text. The sender’s messaging program uses the recipient’s public key to encrypt (lock) the e-mail message and attachments. Only the recipient who has the private key that matches the public key you used to encrypt the message can decipher (unscramble) the message.

A certificate is a digital means of proving your identity. When you send a digitally signed message, you are sending your certificate and public key. Certificates can expire or be revoked.

`NOTE

S/MIME encryption and digital signatures for Windows Mobile-based devices are available only with Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or a later version that supports S/MIME. If you aren’t using one of these products, or have not yet synchronized, these options are unavailable.

Chapter 4. Voicemail & Messaging

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