Encryption of Email Attachments

[gabkwong]

MS Outlook for Dummies time again. I have to send some sensitive documents from my Outlook email account. Is there anyway I can encrypt the attachments or make it require password to open the documents?

Thanks,
Gab

[sammm]

You can password protect MS Word documents if that helps.

[tailchaser]

I used to work for lawyers time... Yes.

[tailchaser]

You can password protect MS Word documents if that helps.

But that's not very secure

[gabkwong]

How about PDF files? Being a TCB I only have the free version of the Adobe!

[tailchaser]

What is your goal? Do you need to protect the integrity of the document to ensure that it hasn't been tampered, or do you need to keep others from seeing it? Why do you HAVE to send via e-mail? Do you need to control what happens to the document once the recipient gets it? Is this the sort of document you might have sent via fax 10 years ago?

[gabkwong]

The bottom line is that these files do not need to be send via email. All I want is to send PDF files to someone w/o the risk of unauthorized eyes access to them. These are forms that I filled out, scan, convert to PDF and than send as email attachments now. Other than send at email attachments, is there anything like a drop box that the recipient can go there and retrieve with a password of some sort in the cloud? Can the iCloud do that? Thanks!

[goofygrin]

share with drop box or google drive, or zip them with a strong password and send them the password in another way (phone, text).

[channelmaniac]

How big are the files?

If < 25MB, PM me your email address, I'll send you an encrypted email and once you fill in your account on the system you can go to the web interface and compose/send and email through there, with attachments. The emails will send either as an encrypted envelope or over TLS depending on the customer domain and their setting if they are a customer of that system... or over encrypted envelope if they aren't.

You'll have the option of expiring keys on messages you sent, knowing if the messages were read (keys retrieved), etc...

It's overkill, but it's a corporate style encryption service.

[Mikey]

Why the complications? FAX is still considered a secure form of communication. Pharmacies, for example, can't survive without FAX, even today.

[Gator Bait]

drop box was just compromised. http://www.cnet.com/news/hackers-hold-7-million-dropbox-passwords-ransom/ I'd never suggest to anyone to use a cloud solution if they want security. My suggestion would be zip the file and password protect it. http://kb.winzip.com/kb/entry/80/ As for Fax is it only secure if both ends are using the old standard fax machines. If either end are using a cloud based solution the "Fax" will usually be delivered via email as a image file or as an email notice to log into a webpage where again you are vulnerable to the security practices of that cloud solution.

[Dave04]

You could always put it in a ZIP file with a password... it's pretty basic encryption (NSA wouldn't have any trouble reading it), but it would stop the casual person from being able to read it...