Office 365 comes with many security features that help users protect their data, including message encryption since it is important for businesses or organizations dealing with sensitive data to enable it. However, With the help of Office 365 message encryption, you can add a layer of security to your emails. It ensures that sensitive information is protected from unauthorized users. Only authorized recipients can read the data.
Moreover, users can encrypt their email messages by enabling them, making it more difficult for hackers to access and read. To create and manage encryption policies, you can use the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center.
Before jumping to how to enable Office 365 message encryption let’s go through with what encryption is and why the user needs encryption.
Encryption in Microsoft Office 365
Encryption, also called Message encryption in Office 365, protects sensitive information and messages. Only the authorized recipient can access the data because of these security measures.
The process of encryption follows the process of encoding. The data can be converted into cipher text or coded text which is only read by the person having the key to decode it decoding of the cipher text to plain text is known as decryption.
The user’s personal information or other data will be protected by the organization. To avoid cyber attacks, data breaches, and data theft, ensure you are enabled Office 365 message encryption. Moreover, With the help of Office 365 encryption, you can efficiently send messages to people within or outside your organization.
Why Users Need Office 365 Message Encryption
There are several reasons Why users need Office 365 message encryption are mentioned below.
- Preserve Security & Minimize Risk – Office 365 encryption protects data by making it unreadable to unauthorized individuals. By doing this, security breaches and data theft from the organization may be avoided.
- Simplified Security Management with Encryption – Office 365 makes message security easier, which reduces the load on the IT team to protect data. Also, there is no need for comprehensive employee training on encryption methods. Additionally, it can reduce human error and improve overall security posture, however, the team needs to know how to enable Office 365 message encryption
- Provides Cost-Saving Security – There’s no need for a separate encryption server with Office 365. It helps to increase your production and add encryption to it at a minimal cost. However, you can save your money on additional hardware.
- Improved Privacy Concerns – Encryption keeps the messages confidential and protects sensitive information from random users. This is important for businesses handling private data or personal information including financial data.
These are the causes why encryption is useful in maintaining the data security of the organization.
How Encryption in Office 365 Works?
After knowing about the reasons for the need for Encryption it is important to know the workings of the encryption for a better understanding of how to enable Office 365 message encryption.
First, the message is encrypted. It means the transformation of the message occurs from plain text to unreadable encrypted text. This process happens from the sender’s side while sending the message. After that, the encrypted message is stored in the ciphertext, and after reaching the recipient, the message is changed back to plain text.
How to Enable Office 365 Message Encryption
To enable Office 365 message encryption, you need a subscription that contains this feature. Since, most of the Microsoft 365 plans including personal and business plans, have this feature. However, corporate plans offer additional security benefits like anti-spam and anti-malware protection.
Additionally, You have admin rights. First, you need to enable Azure Rights Management for Office 365 encryption. You can activate it from the Microsoft 365 admin center by navigating to “Protection Activation,” and clicking “Activate.“
Prerequisites for Encryption
Prerequisites are required while enabling Office 365 message encryptions.
- Encryption Key Setup – For advanced users, there’s an option to manage the encryption key for your organization. However, Microsoft manages this by default so you do not need to make any changes to it.
- Confirming Encryption Settings – You can inspect whether the email encryption is enabled for your organization or not using “PowerShell.”
- Set Up Rules for Email Encryption – If you’re familiar with technical configurations, You can create rules in the Microsoft 365 admin center to automatically encrypt emails based on specific measures.
How to Send and Receive Encrypted Messages in Office 365
Steps to send encrypted messages in Office 365.
You need to follow the following steps to send Office 365 message encryption
Step 2. Click on the “Compose mail” button & Choose the option “Encrypt” given in the toolbar.
Step 3. Click on the “Change Permissions” to stop forwarding emails.
Note: It will be helpful to prevent the forwarding of the mail and the data.
Step 4. Complete your email message and click on the “send” button.
Steps to read the encrypted message.
After receiving the message the receiver is not directly seen, the receiver needs to perform these steps to see the email message.
Step 2. Then, log in to the Office 365 account, with the receiver credential. Another method to read the message is by sending a one-time password to recover from the server.
Step 3. After successful steps, protected messages will be visible in the web browser.
Step 4. You can also reply from here.
Make Use of Automated Tool
The Office 365 Export tool is a great feature, but it’s not recommended for sharing sensitive data due to data exposure, limited security, and breach of compliance. Therefore, making use of any professional solutions for maintaining the integrity & security of data is advisable. One reliable tool is the SysTools Office 365 Export Tool.
You can download and purchase it using the buttons below.
Highlighted features of this software are as follows,
- Various O365 subscription plans are compatible with this tool.
- Extracts data from Office 365 into PST, EML, MSG, MBOX, or PDF file types.
- A date and category filter is available to export important data first.
- This tool creates an Export Report that can be saved in CSV File Format.
- It is compatible with the latest versions of Microsoft Windows OS.
Wrapping Up
In this article, we will discuss the step-by-step process of how to enable Office 365 message encryption. Since Office 365 encrypted email is a great tool that protects businesses and private and maintains security too. By following these instructions, you can add an extra layer of security to your messages and reduce the risk of theft of confidential information