Securing Enterprise Email Communication on both Sides of the Firewall

Abstract

Prior to the NSA affair [1], the threat to electronic enterprise communication was considered to be beyond the firewall. With the Snowden revelations[2] however and the increased use of mobile devices for business email, the need to secure communication from sender to recipient and within the corporate network has raised the awareness[3] for industrial scale end-to-end encryption.

This position paper explains the risks and pitfalls associated with the existing concepts of end-to-end encryption, presents the obstacles which have to be overcome and introduces alternative approaches to securing enterprise email communication.

Many solutions are available which deliver personal simple client-side encryption but which are limited to S/MIME whilst others combine a client and gateway organizational approach, which incorporate flexible delivery options as well as interfaces for anti-virus, anti-spam and data loss prevention tools.

This paper takes a closer look at the complex issue of creating and distributing the certificates which are required for end-to-end encryption and will introduce alternative approaches for secure end-to-end communication. The reader will learn about the benefits and risks of end-to-end encryption within an enterprise security architecture and will understand which approaches work best for specific environments and user groups.