Microsoft® Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit

Using Outlook 2003 to Help Protect Messages

You have two main options for helping to protect messages in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 from unauthorized use, tampering, or change: 1) Information Rights Management (IRM), and 2) cryptographic messaging using the S/MIME standard. While both of these options can help protect messages your users send and receive, they work differently and are each best suited for different scenarios.

S/MIME is a standard for sending digitally signed and encrypted e-mail messages. Using S/MIME in Outlook 2003 is the preferred way to:

• Sign a message to prove the identity of the sender.

  S/MIME is the only option Microsoft Office 2003 supports for digital signatures. Technically, an IRM message is a lot like a signed ...