Audience: Staff and Faculty with a Franklin University issued Office365 email account.
Disclaimer: The results and functionality of the following article only apply to the audience listed above
For best practices, please see the following video (staff or faculty log-in required to view): Click Here
All email traffic is inherently at risk for interception by malicious third parties. Through our Microsoft Office 365 email subscription, we have the ability to send encrypted email messages. Any email message containing sensitive (personally identifying or financial) information should be sent with encryption as an extra layer of security, especially email sent to an external user or organization.
Topics
Receiving an Opening Encrypted Email from Staff and Faculty
How Non-Office 365 Email Account Recipients Open Your Encrypted Email
Sending an Encrypted Email
To trigger the encryption process on an email that you are sending, one of the following patterns must be present in either the subject line or the body of the email:
- (encrypt)
- [encrypt]
- (secure)
- [secure]
An additional email security policy has now been activated for all faculty and staff (it was already enabled for certain areas of the organization) in alignment with Microsoft’s Data Loss Prevention policies (DLP). This policy will automatically place the encryption protocol on an email that you are about to send, which may contain any of the following pieces of information:
- Credit Card Number
- U.S. Bank Account Number
- ABA Routing Number
- U.S. Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)
- U.S. Social Security Number (SSN)
- U.S. / U.K. Passport Number
Receiving and Opening Encrypted Email from Staff and Faculty
Warning: Please be advised to use all necessary precautions when opening encrypted emails. If it doesn't come from within the University, a banner atop the email will indicate that the email came from an outside source. Only open emails from sources where you know the sender and recognize the full email address they are using.
To open an encrypted email from a fellow staff or faculty member of Franklin University, double-click the email to open it from Outlook. Notice the red icon (below) listed above the arrival time, indicating the presence of an encrypted email.
You can reply to the email or forward the email directly from the web portal while you are viewing the message. Any replies or forwards will also be encrypted and will include the conversation history.
How Non-Office 365 Email Account Recipients Open Your Encrypted Email
When someone with a non-Office 365 account receives an email from you and clicks the option in the email to Read the Message, they may be asked to enter their Google credentials or Microsoft credentials to view the message, which will NOT grant access. Instead, the recipient should access the encrypted message by using the one-time passcode option. The recipient will then be sent a separate email with the one-time passcode to view the encrypted email contents.
The external recipient will receive an email message similar to the one below. This will inform them of a received encrypted email and show who it came from. To view the email, the recipient will need to select the "Read the message" button from the email.
After the recipient selects "Read the message" from the email, they will be directed to a web site. On this website, they can select "Sign in with a One-time passcode" to view the encrypted email message or select the "Need Help" option below if additional support is needed.
After clicking "Sign in with a One-time Passcode" the web site will show you to which email address the One-time passcode was sent and provide a text field to type or paste the said code into. Should the recipient not receive the code, they can opt to select the link from the bottom of this website.
Following the step above, please check the email account that the original message was sent to, and that was referenced in the previous step above. Below you can see a full-screen grab of a One-time passcode email from Microsoft. If the code entered is validated, the recipient will no be able to view the email add attachments online. Please note, as you can see in the message below, the One-time code is only valid for 15 minutes.
For additional support please view the Microsoft support article here: How do I open a protected message?
Wish to log a request with the Help Desk? Use your Franklin University username and password to login: Log A Request