Tip #2 – Sending secure email.

Detailed Steps:

1. Each party must secure a digital certificate..

There are several places you can go to get digital certificates. We have tested the free email certificates available from C-O-M-O-D-O. For other options, you can take a look at Microsoft's recommendations.

To get a COMODO certificate, click the link above and at the bottom of the page, click the link "Get your Free Secure Email Certificate now! (Internet Explorer only)". Fill out their profile info, deselect the "Opt In?" checkbox (unless you want their newsletter), enter a revoke password, then click "Agree and Continue".

This will popup a scarry "Potential Scripting Violation" window. Click "Yes". This occurs because the website has told your Internet Explorer to request a certificate from them. You don't want just any website doing that and therefore the warning.

The next thing that will happen is you should receive an email from Certificate Customer Services [secureemail@comodogroup.com] with the subject line "Your certificate is ready for collection". Open this email and click the button labeled "Collect and install certificate".

This will open a new browser windows with a form where you should enter the email address you are registering and the "Collection Password" that is provided in the email. Now click "Submit & Continue". This will pop up another "Potential Scripting Violation" box - just click "Yes".

That was the hard part and each of you only has to do this once. Now that you have your own certificate, you can exchange secure email with anyone else that has a certificate.

2. Exchange certificates with the person you wish to communicate with securely..

To exchange certificates, you send an email to each other containing your certificate. To do this, you open a new email in Outlook and click on the "Options" button (about 10 icons to the right of the "Send" button). On the "Message Options" window, click the "Security Settings" button (upper right). On the "Security Properies" window, click the "Add digital signature to this message" checkbox. Do not check the "Encrypt message contents and attachments" (that comes later). The "Send this message as clear text signed" should also be checked but not the "S/MIME receipt for this message". Click "OK".

You have now digitally signed the message (which also means your digital certificate is attached to the message. The next step is to send this message to the person you want to exchange certificates with. When you receive their message and when they receive yours, you want to open the message and right click on their name or email address in the "To:" field and select "Add to Outlook Contacts". Now their certificate is saved on your computer.

That is the last step in setting up the ability to exchange encrypted emails with a specific person. If you want to exchange encrypted emails with another person, they need to get a digital certificate (step 1) and then do step 2 with them.

3. Exchanging encrypted emails..

Once you have exchanged certificates, the hard part is done. All you have to do now to send a digitally signed, encrypted email to that person is to open a new email and look to the right of the Send button. Click on the blue lock icon. If you don't see that, click on the "Options" button (about 10 icons to the right of the "Send" button). On the "Message Options" window, click the "Security Settings" button (upper right). On the "Security Properies" window, click the "Encrypt message contents and attachments" checkbox and you can digitally sign it as well by clicking the "Add digital signature to this message" checkbox.