Sending Secure E-Mail?
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Did I miss something.
Company A worker wants to send a file to a government mailbox - right?
We assume the email admins have access to the mailboxes.
But really, so should anyone else in the department to whom these emails are being sent so work can be done by anyone in the department, not just one guy who might be on vacation for a month. So the originally mentioned idea that just one person has access to this data just seems weird thinking. -
@Dashrender said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Obsolesce said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Dashrender said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Obsolesce said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@JasGot said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
I have a customer that needs to send e-mail to a company.
This customer does not want ANYONE other than the intended recipient to view the contents.What are the options to do this, and what complexities do they impose?
I am aware of these methods and their problems:
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send the info in an encrypted document that is attached
1a) Some anti virus software will block encrypted attachments.
1b) You still have to communicate the decryption password to the end user who is only available via e-mail. -
Sites that allow you to send a document into their service/system and then the recipient has to go there to retrieve it
2a) Recipient may refuse to go to a web site to retrieve an e-mail.
2b) Recipient may not have web access with a browser.
Any other options? The key elements are 1) E-mail based and 2) cannot be read by anyone other than the recipient.
Tell the recipients not to let anyone else have access to their email or their username and password. Tell recipients to enable MFA on their email. Tell recipients to secure the devices that have access to their email.
Then only they can see their email.
How does this keep the admin on the system from seeing the email?
Why would anyone other than the user have admin privileges on the system?
the email admin.
There is auditing, monitoring, alerting. You can know if there is non-owner email access.
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@Dashrender said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
Did I miss something.
Company A worker wants to send a file to a government mailbox - right?
We assume the email admins have access to the mailboxes.
But really, so should anyone else in the department to whom these emails are being sent so work can be done by anyone in the department, not just one guy who might be on vacation for a month. So the originally mentioned idea that just one person has access to this data just seems weird thinking.Plus aliases, secretaries, distro groups...
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@Obsolesce said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Dashrender said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Obsolesce said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Dashrender said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Obsolesce said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@JasGot said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
I have a customer that needs to send e-mail to a company.
This customer does not want ANYONE other than the intended recipient to view the contents.What are the options to do this, and what complexities do they impose?
I am aware of these methods and their problems:
-
send the info in an encrypted document that is attached
1a) Some anti virus software will block encrypted attachments.
1b) You still have to communicate the decryption password to the end user who is only available via e-mail. -
Sites that allow you to send a document into their service/system and then the recipient has to go there to retrieve it
2a) Recipient may refuse to go to a web site to retrieve an e-mail.
2b) Recipient may not have web access with a browser.
Any other options? The key elements are 1) E-mail based and 2) cannot be read by anyone other than the recipient.
Tell the recipients not to let anyone else have access to their email or their username and password. Tell recipients to enable MFA on their email. Tell recipients to secure the devices that have access to their email.
Then only they can see their email.
How does this keep the admin on the system from seeing the email?
Why would anyone other than the user have admin privileges on the system?
the email admin.
There is auditing, monitoring, alerting. You can know if there is non-owner email access.
Not as the sender, you can't.
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@JaredBusch Thanks. Not much more to it beyond what I thought. I was hoping someone would know of a solution that could work.
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@JasGot said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@JaredBusch Thanks. Not much more to it beyond what I thought. I was hoping someone would know of a solution that could work.
GPG/PGP works exactly like you want.
It's asymmetric encryption. If you wanted to send a secure email to me, you need my public key. Since it's public I can send it to you in an email and I could post it online. Whatever.
When you send a secure email to me you encrypt it with my public key. To be able to view the email I need two things - my private key and my passphrase. None of those are available to anyone else.
The email is stored on the email server as it was sent - fully encrypted. And so is it on my computer. So a sysadmin with access to the email server can't do anything. A sysadmin with full admin rights on my computer could get my private key. But not the passphrase. So can't do anything with the encrypted email.
Emails can also be signed. Which means that using your public key, I can verify that the email you sent me actually came from you and nobody else.
This is exactly what happens when you download software from repositories like ubuntu, debian etc. The package manager need the public key of the repository to verify that the packages are from there and not some shady individual.
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These are some of the software and services that support encrypted mail with GPG/PGP inside the mail client.
https://www.openpgp.org/software/It's an open standard: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880
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@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
These are some of the software and services that support encrypted mail with GPG/PGP inside the mail client.
https://www.openpgp.org/software/It's an open standard: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880
The problem is, is that for GPG/PGP to work, you have to exchange keys outside of email, but the requirement in this case is to do it all within email. So that doesn't work. The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent. It ends up doing nothing more than TLS already does, but with a lot more manual work.
If they could exchange keys, of course, but there is a reason that we'd already pointed out that this didn't meet the criteria right away.
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@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
you have to exchange keys outside of email
Sorry Scott, but that is completely incorrect. The public key is public.
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@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent.
Completely incorrect as well. The public key can only be used for encryption, not decryption.
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@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
It ends up doing nothing more than TLS already does, but with a lot more manual work.
Completely wrong as well. TLS is just transport encryption. When it's not in transport, it's not encrypted.
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@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
If they could exchange keys, of course, but there is a reason that we'd already pointed out that this didn't meet the criteria right away.
It's because you are thinking about symmetric encryption.
From wikipedia:
Symmetric encryption
"The overarching problem with symmetrical cryptography, or single-key cryptography, is that it requires a secret key to be communicated through trusted couriers, diplomatic bags, or any other secure communication channel. If two parties cannot establish a secure initial key exchange, they won't be able to communicate securely without the risk of messages being intercepted and decrypted by a third party who acquired the key during the initial key exchange."Asymmetric encryption
Public-key cryptography uses a two-key system, consisting of the public and the private keys, where messages are encrypted with one key and decrypted with another. It depends on the selected cryptographic algorithm which key—public or private—is used for encrypting messages, and which for decrypting. For example, in RSA, the private key is used for decrypting messages, while in the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), the private key is used for encrypting them. The public key can be sent over non-secure channels or shared in public; the private key is only available to its owner. -
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent.
Completely incorrect as well. The public key can only be used for encryption, not decryption.
Oh, right, okay, having a "duh" moment. So you can send your public key via email, and ANYONE can send you an encrypted email, but ONLY to you. Because you have the private decryption key.
You are right, I follow now. That could work.
The question would be... if they aren't allowed to communicate through any means but email, while we don't know why that is, it feels unlikely that they will be allowed to request that the recipients send them their public key or even generate one. It's hard to imagine asking recipients that you aren't even allowed to call to do this. But in theory, you could.
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This is what PGP encrypted email looks like. Like all email it's just plain text. Before this section is the usual email headers. So the "To:" and "From:" and "Subject:" is not encrypted but the email content itself is.
This is an OpenPGP/MIME encrypted message (RFC 4880 and 3156) --xhndWJKlxj2H7EcRFNi37V5EBuMbJO6xj Content-Type: application/pgp-encrypted Content-Description: PGP/MIME version identification Version: 1 --xhndWJKlxj2H7EcRFNi37V5EBuMbJO6xj Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="encrypted.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP encrypted message Content-Disposition: inline; filename="encrypted.asc" -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) hQEMA6dGE3LaIUOQAQf8DGIYe/G72AkcY0M3+s2xfbe+JNax3gpPXtDUpxQVPbIF emRbZZUgOR5NVd7oZ+/ezO2r455HVG2Ar12cA88tk9i86XOOFAhaO1Ib7nTpKAS+ Um9EbsfO1kqS1qmIJIaDOV6hSfSssxDVEj5SMhvDhH/s3As/0Xo3q3+5CqahOxPF /xeanqndpWqyusmJTQzmE3RZhqtErIB9oaMzBNyx1KZ3fhrxGdsSX1wNYpalelGu wJBKZGsfxr0BPL+jb/UDXLNtf1QdNLkSTLpqtHYb8aNNLaDOTMo2CnLKaqSMpAbR e1sBAYxqPchwMPKT9zo60Z+OqRUcUC1dTi6SahiKD4UBDAPaVPPT71S0wgEH/iIC 0eh4w7flugfSP/pBylcCb3Ud3MyjRmHEepG90kkFa/PP2Wxybe7R/080Sj5910Es BZBDn8f/Eg6w1/VNp+FMc/28NU460Gkw0TSWjWSNpwl0W3TMgszvS+ug+P3uxyfx JH00ho+59nRJPaxrDX4rIZl5/1DRVhjWudGLzEU9sAg7/CTusloBhsP2wWXgMXxP mwF69uNptRmAgoVjTOBJgfC3wJO3Vmt8Ml8VLV57lL3T6KbRuiYABNICD+2eSgUc bY6xo4Cvz/EINKTHWzTiSaSRrVkf6J6QMRVFNfnCMW4esGfY+W2bAysHfyD0w754 pOhKx+eewM9qUV9JRjrS6gFDgkjNq7G/ps9O6RaY8MZ2TYFapEdDSjvxzDbBjRqL Zp3gkIC5TVhSA2IkgDa0ddm9+kW7oKsyVtW6YunsUGALs9WZthY6cAOThVT3JmOb t0M3lNtlByzqWYKuzP1ZJKkGui1Vi1K0OPRZ1cSXhwsYzQD72bAqJxh2SLVcqix2 GpybtuR/K6vHonDCj6F/ISKCSTnJZSptPd81H0DLU3AubHhwRs5hkvsAAhr0XcXW m57s7CsEUVSeowXfT+qSYglB7UaNjKkkhPSGhxOIlEKcPndNH4kElKknghesu17Q 3+ajidIJTAe6oZ61t1OOMOU2Qw2a9H7OvYHWTWSl5RhrcDTTrTlkeWavmZwa3Nsa 9OH1N5m4EzbcYGTJdZOVTZM4ViX1XHNHENkdAUHItmrs7DqXSxuUrQGJ0W6IYRfV 3A+IRkTvd6wrA9ju5J0RqF0xvhHr4gXAUgiVau0Fkxo3UiTvonpe5Jvm2yRA9v/x YAefEXGSmGpLfAbwteT6BSViYhg/Mwi5uoSxwbUUy43uBVFXo9cDqIWlATp/GvgU pxpoflT9RdyhugoKyFJ+3fCv32Rm+G/tJKxN5snnoEeIFSj5FVgPJKyrcyiKwJg2 wvE/OCg/+Nvqyx5LnVna2N5mOfO3fqZeBpq2bnH1Auq57s1ftFJGC+7IxWZKZUFa Tbl/KpjIhLQojSiThB+yg5cMfnZ0+xYxD8EfWFuiLWgZwQJO8CJs62QXzlP6qwjm g13UFfzpa+994lcRfZ1UzwEXb6Mk6NS/2nwkkDrztAhKKJtLNGx/R4wC9qloi4gl 0FDQcmOBkSwYJXxUzIxu8WCKVrLDFHKyI0eG4o4h3swUnAgGpvmX3Z7ECFanDY0s jlKG7gY7zcagAycsrVVl66tAFlPAGlTHWM43RrgvYKudlImnJBp2ZPYsG4xqn7cR ED/RhDuAGRLXy+HzL028TSJUiIet48eOD2zAmMd8EQpuT4QBFs+KL9lsTzmbCCcH lpJJxReWmAi3501zcvJUaOsfeG+prhlZg3WSIboisu5s82tCl4SURztIRwfTGl3a IjxENi16vchVfAIIDqwAHFyQrA5fmgjsASFukf+HArOezksxd9EQmgeQYUc1Au98 h0zphTEkvkI4jlwP2upUXkYMTRZj5Rqr0US9T+TkArtbI/f4NDtKEfzlDv2v63p/ UwmSetfR7g0U1OMZbogewb1PM8vGorneUv+tKU7feTZhWmMe6qyWVpsWO1du9i3k LlaWS6m72DCjXuiAl1X3BApWIdQxgeQdfQ/QxM1Z1Vk2ooBIzARzQ+rZa2A9xzVh x+s4wZOEAD0sFzYoMr2OZMfA5dySwaz/5/aNR+vL3DbpLEvAnQAj6wZLoHTKuR3N Ofw0DvTZDVd1yYPTkG28L0B42ZySGfFSzlebJHcuNCH2mLgUb0XJiVO5s3kaADqE E2nQzrdHgBjodVGO+bnfXlzEySVVTSVQt/yXx7YhxBk+MIXq1JEwAFYLS745sgZc 2lQDhvCcT327mgV5h+CHwYbQM1ZGOrPnia3RzSWTPNiphBqcZe129fD+3zlbdrkC spcsSGfK1OysgGsectehQ6LjE2eASktzxQmS8ViNxnoum4Y2Ce60ED49M1ApGJ1J MRaJdcgRkLEihA/K6PndHnjfawQwP2kQX/j9q4vCNfLCm+SP6SdLsWRSQuvRGT4q +Fx9+qX+znjWVOYZzeIrtv64a0lJtJGrnaPoKez5yR0TN/r9qv6PB/3N/np6bLQG 0u0col+lnPgxVC8oxbR/6Ev9sAfVmHUw04IpO9QBw5zaLapIlMdL1TonzxVs552F LFo7fAcjVc7E/cxfYrvXkBG5PhNHbMDsYaVA5XyvOkNhv0vkqyPatK0BIyttVy+F 0DSAdFB2SVlEkcKLPd6ciY5wpufwH63wnj80TpS4jZJl/0DMLkcpiU6xuYrN5Ibs 9UVTpcT/J7/jvbPaCpDmHzaGNDOVCcpS/YGrla6nKY14lwI/XHXrF/5MFGVki/Hp sIbNWcbRTQDzNlcp2Z7D0APArt7HN4AwiuEo/GXMC8sKAJjIIAg4mjhbBlEmIvLh z65wNWwqqmYvuerIMDYlIvPry749CSrJ2Q8H4LfA3nRl0gY/twW5O2IEoHnhx/x/ vvJCy+WRJnUaMvCR/JI2Pt2ZkEUFLDe1t5TGlrYhEP5G6m85AXuaSCFHZNJ8TZB8 DodR7quOLAbTLGmCpXrMfKpyaczbjj8hnqstT7/sCo1M0LHbBdFPpDcVmF0H1CW4 10Vx/NdrY998eE84ryocgSdgkloTiUeMYUwIFYo2FwnfkXe6/3+5RATlr17sCrXE kaEp73F/FhSeN18d3baiCcvWfkVW2hmyM48AgZRcDzjIOXeQnqwZ03YB1nt4DLK8 6jGivw+1JFVjbDonodGSvZX5eirTR+2xQiXBvZuhlpmLNY9Y0T8YtScicc8eQ2m7 YhSw07/vawW+yg89po/MIj2WL5/m2EmfRxQWL6phv/Ee4JUogvmOiKbgKG/W84+v 4Q== =m2A7 -----END PGP MESSAGE----- --xhndWJKlxj2H7EcRFNi37V5EBuMbJO6xj-- -
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
It ends up doing nothing more than TLS already does, but with a lot more manual work.
Completely wrong as well. TLS is just transport encryption. When it's not in transport, it's not encrypted.
Yes, I understand that point. I was thinking that they could not send the encryption key first, leaving it as open. But, if the requirement allows the recipient to do all the work to set up their own GPG, then this could work.
I wrongly just assumed that if they could do this that they could do any number of things so having the recipient set up GPG / PGP wasn't an option. But that was an assumption and not actually stated.
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@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent.
Completely incorrect as well. The public key can only be used for encryption, not decryption.
Oh, right, okay, having a "duh" moment. So you can send your public key via email, and ANYONE can send you an encrypted email, but ONLY to you. Because you have the private decryption key.
You are right, I follow now. That could work.
No problem. I'm not a crypto guy but we used PGP encrypted email for many years so I know the basic principles.
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@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent.
Completely incorrect as well. The public key can only be used for encryption, not decryption.
Oh, right, okay, having a "duh" moment. So you can send your public key via email, and ANYONE can send you an encrypted email, but ONLY to you. Because you have the private decryption key.
You are right, I follow now. That could work.
No problem. I'm not a crypto guy but we used PGP encrypted email for many years so I know the basic principles.
I've used it, but I was adding in the incorrect assumption that everything had to be done only on the sender's end. Which if you did that, encrypting with PGP and sending the key with it, anyone who intercepted would be able to read. But if the recipient can send the key too, then yeah, obviously that works great.
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@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent.
Completely incorrect as well. The public key can only be used for encryption, not decryption.
Oh, right, okay, having a "duh" moment. So you can send your public key via email, and ANYONE can send you an encrypted email, but ONLY to you. Because you have the private decryption key.
You are right, I follow now. That could work.
No problem. I'm not a crypto guy but we used PGP encrypted email for many years so I know the basic principles.
I've used it, but I was adding in the incorrect assumption that everything had to be done only on the sender's end. Which if you did that, encrypting with PGP and sending the key with it, anyone who intercepted would be able to read. But if the recipient can send the key too, then yeah, obviously that works great.
It's pretty easy to install and use nowadays, especially if you are just a couple of persons. You just install the add-on needed depending on your email client. Then you have to tell it what you want your passphrase to be and it will create your public and private key for you.
All you have to do then is email your public key to whomever you want to be able to receive secure emails from. And they'll do the same.
When you receive a secure email you have to enter your passphrase to read it.
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@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@Pete-S said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
@scottalanmiller said in Sending Secure E-Mail?:
The system admin can always get the key out of your email and open whatever has been sent.
Completely incorrect as well. The public key can only be used for encryption, not decryption.
Oh, right, okay, having a "duh" moment. So you can send your public key via email, and ANYONE can send you an encrypted email, but ONLY to you. Because you have the private decryption key.
You are right, I follow now. That could work.
No problem. I'm not a crypto guy but we used PGP encrypted email for many years so I know the basic principles.
I've used it, but I was adding in the incorrect assumption that everything had to be done only on the sender's end. Which if you did that, encrypting with PGP and sending the key with it, anyone who intercepted would be able to read. But if the recipient can send the key too, then yeah, obviously that works great.
It's pretty easy to install and use nowadays, especially if you are just a couple of persons. You just install the add-on needed depending on your email client. Then you have to tell it what you want your passphrase to be and it will create your public and private key for you.
All you have to do then is email your public key to whomever you want to be able to receive secure emails from. And they'll do the same.
When you receive a secure email you have to enter your passphrase to read it.
Writing this I think the best way to use this for ordinary business use is to only send encrypted email when you are sending something sensitive, like passwords or stuff like that.
Problem with encrypted email (and also it's strength) is that you can't read it if you don't have your private key and passphrase. But it makes it complicated reading email on different devices and software unless you copy your private key everywhere and enter your passphrase on a number of insecure devices. Which defeats the security aspect of it.
So it works best on desktop clients and if you only encrypt when really needed, you are not much affected by the drawbacks. If you try to read an encrypted email on a devices that doesn't support it you'll just see an attachment that is just gibberish as my earlier post shows.
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@JasGot
Is this all inter-company email you're talking about or is it your customer sending e-mail to outside parties?I was under the assumption you were talking about your customer wanting to send secure email to 3rd parties.
If that's the case, it's not as simple as having the 3rd party set up PKI solution and giving everyone in your customer's company a public key so they can encrypt emails to send them (unless they already have that set up).
If the sole goal of all of this is to keep the email systems administrators and computer client admins from obtaining and reading any email, then the ONLY options are either to encrypt the emails themselves as in GPG/PGP pki on the receivers end, or a third party that uses some other means to verify identity before allowing the recipient to view the email similar to how your bank may send secure communications to you.
In the past I set up a global PKI solution as a requirement that did just this, and also made available a solution that could distribute a certificate to any 3rd party that needed one which would allow a user in the company to then send an encrypted email to that recipient once the recipient sent a copy of the public key. This worked well, as I had set up some good instructions users in my company could use to help get the 3rd party recipient set up.
Also, keep in mind this will only work if the email clients support encryption. Clients like Outlook and Thunderbird do. OWA can if you use IE plus some MS plugin.
