HSDC: How to Send Encrypted Email

Created by Keeley Trygstad, Modified on Fri, 31 May, 2024 at 9:21 AM by Keeley Trygstad

HSDC: How to Send Encrypted Email

If you want an email to be sent with encryption, you simply need to put [Encrypted]: at the start of the subject line (it is not case-sensitive). Please note: you need the space after the colon for the encryption to work. For example, imagine you want to send the email below as an encrypted email. Please note how the subject line is changed:

To: keeley@techieavenger.com

Subject: Testing this message is being sent securely

To: keeley@techieavenger.com

Subject: [Encrypted]: Testing this message is being sent securely

Any message sent to an external user (not part of the hsdc.org domain), will be encrypted. Email sent internally to senders on the hsdc.org domain will not be encrypted because it does not leave your email server to be transmitted via the public Internet.

IF THE EXTERNAL USERS EMAIL IS HOSTED ON MICROSOFT

If the external user's email is also hosted on Microsoft, they will receive an email such as this (note the little lock in the upper right of my Outlook display which shows me it is encrypted):

Depending on how my Outlook is set up (or if I am in Outlook online), when I click on the email, I may see this in the preview pane:

Double-click the email and it will either verify or ask you to log in again depending on the situation.

Once open, the email will look normal to Outlook user, but the encryption notice will be at the top.

IF THE EXTERNAL USERS EMAIL IS NOT HOSTED ON MICROSOFT

If the external user's email is hosted elsewhere (i.e., Google in this example), then they won't see any difference until they open the email. At that point, they will see the following:

The user need to click Read the message. Depending on their email service, they will be presented with options to confirm their identity. Since this is Google, I am given the choice to either sign in with Google or receive a one-time passcode to the same email address. If I open the email at a later date, I will need to work through the process again.

Once they verify their identity, they will be able to read the message.