The Trouble with Outlook Email Encryption

You can send encrypted messages using MS Outlook, but there may be a problem.

In a message if you click on the option for More Options at the bottom right of the tool bar:

. .. a Properties dialog will open with a Security section. Clicking on Security Settings will bring up the option to encrypt the body and attachments to an email.

Click on "Change Settings . . ." and you'll see that you have the option to set a cryptography format. The default format is S/MIME.

Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions is a standard public key encryption, but it has been compromised.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted a notice last month, stating that a flaw may allow the plaintext of emails encrypted with PGP and S/MIME to be revealed. Security experts are recommending that that it these encryption methods be disabled from email clients.