S/MIME
Google has announced that it is now supporting S/MIME for Gmail authentication and encryption. So what is S/MIME and should I install it?
Virtually all human-written Internet email and a fairly large proportion of automated email is transmitted via SMTP in MIME format. S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard for public key encryption and signing of MIME data. The nutshell version is S/MIME ensures that when you send an email to your recipients that it is authenticated (proves it is from you) and is encrypted (process of encoding a message or information in such a way that only authorized parties can access it).
When email began (1980s) using SMTP it was easy for anyone to change the FROM email address on any email address and falsely claim the email was from a bank or other known source to phish for information. Email authentication was the solution to this nefarious attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. There are a number of methods to authenticate email and S/MIME is just one method.
Government and tech geeks have used S/MIME since 1995. However, there was no real standard for S/MIME until 1998 when the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) submitted S/MIME for consideration as an Internet standard which led S/MIME "to being the leading contender for a message security standard" according to Microsoft. Microsoft (Outlook and Exchange), Apple, Google (G Suite Enterprise), and many other providers support S/MIME.
Caveat of Using S/MIME
The requirement for S/MIME is that both endpoint clients support S/MIME, which means that both the sender and the recipient must support S/MIME. If the sender supports S/MIME and the recipient does not support S/MIME the email may not be received. Enforcing S/MIME use on outbound messages would result in many (if not most or all) recipients not being able to read the sender's e-mails. You cannot force anyone to support or install S/MIME unless they agree to use it.
Gmail Requires G Suite Enterprise to Implement S/MIME
G Suite users can support S/MIME and Super Administrators can enforce and install it on all its domain users if they have the G Suite Enterprise premium office suite of Google services. Contact Connectech to set up your account.
Gmail S/MIME Setup for G Suite Super Administrators
Instructions for setting up S/MIME for G Suite Enterprise are available for Super Administrators to implement.
If you need assistance Contact Connectech.
Gmail S/MIME Setup
Use hosted S/MIME to keep Gmail messages more secure
Sending S/MIME Using Snapmail Chrome Extension
This is a very cool way to do this since the email self destructs after the recipient reads the message in sixty seconds. So you better read fast. This requires a learning curve. Currently Snapmail is only encrypting text content. If you have images or attachments in your email you will need to use another method.
Send or Receive S/MIME in Chrome Using the Fossa Guard Extension
It is possible to send and receive S/MIME through two services (or for that matter any service that supports S/MIME) using the Fossa Guard Chrome Extension. Here is a video that shows you how this is done between Gmail and Apple Mail (which also requires a learning curve):