Overview of Certificates and Cryptographic e-Mail Messaging in Outlook

The user can help prevent impersonation and tampering of e-mail messages in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 by using cryptographic features such as S/MIME, digital signatures and encryption. The following introduces the basic terminology of cryptography and explains some of the common methods used. Cryptography is a set of standards and protocols for encoding data and messages, so that they can be stored and transmitted more securely. Even when the transmission medium (for example, the Internet) is untrustworthy, one can use cryptography to encrypt the sensitive files - so that an intruder is less likely to understand them - and ensure data integrity as well as maintain secrecy.