S/MIME Certificates for Email Security

Why Secure Email?

Malicious parties have become increasingly sophisticated at targeting organizations via email, including intercepting messages to view sensitive information and/or email spoofing with the intent of pushing to phishing sites or triggering malware downloads. Using S/MIME Certificates to digitally sign and encrypt emails help organizations protect themselves from these threats, by ensuring only intended recipients can access email content and also verifying the email origin to help distinguish between legitimate and malicious emails.

What is S/MIME?

S/MIME, or Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, is the industry standard for public key encryption for MIME-based (message-based) data. S/MIME Certificates offers two key email security functions:

  • Digital Signature - proves authorship and prevents tampering, assuring the email recipient that the email came from you, not an imposter and that the content of the email has not been altered in transit
  • Encryption - ensures a message can only be opened by the intended recipient and keeps sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands