Improving Your Outlook

This chapter covered a wide variety of security related topics. You learned about digital certificates, signing and encrypting emails, security zones, attachment security, and information rights management. You can use all of these features to make the most of your Outlook 2003 installation. This section shows you how to implement some of the features discussed in this chapter.

When you install Outlook 2003, you can customize some of the features discussed here right away. That way, when you're ready to use them, they'll already be configured for you.

If you think you'll need to send signed or encrypted mail, consider signing up for a digital certificate. You can get a free digital certificate from Thawte or pay $14.95 a year for a certificate from VeriSign. So, which should you choose? Only you can decide. The Thawte certificate is free. The VeriSign certificate has a few advantages, such as the public search feature on the VeriSign Web site. Whatever you choose, you can install your certificate in Outlook and use it to send signed and encrypted mail.

Even though digital certificates are easy to install and configure, that doesn't mean you should sign and encrypt all your email messages. Signing an email message can add to the email's size. In the case of short emails, it can even double their size. With the popularity of cellular phones and Pocket PC Phone devices, you'll probably have a number of recipients who cannot access signed email. For example, a signed email cannot be read as an SMS message on a mobile device.

Attachment security is a hot topic today. Many users install more recent versions of Outlook over older versions that did not have attachment security. If you have attachments stored in a Personal Folders file that you need to access after installing Outlook 2003, you have a couple of options. You can export those messages to Outlook Express, or you can edit the Registry to gain access to those attachments. To edit the Registry, use the following steps:

1. Close Outlook.

2. Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit at the Windows Run command (Start, Run) and click OK.

3. Navigate to the following key: \HKEY_CURRENT_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\ Outlook\Security.

4. If you haven't previously configured the Level1Remove Registry key, you'll have to add a new string value to the key referenced in step 3.

5. After you add the string value, double-click the value to bring up the Edit String dialog box.

6. Enter the list of attachment extensions separated by semicolons. So, to unblock Access databases and batch files, enter mdb;bat. You don't need to enter the leading period in the extension.

7. Exit the Registry Editor and restart Outlook. You should now be able to view Access databases and batch files attached to email messages.

Information rights management is one of those features that you'll probably have to investigate a little before you decide how to implement it. Some industries will use it heavily, whereas others will probably never bother. Some industries that will probably use IRM heavily include legal firms and any firms that need to exchange sensitive personal information.

I believe that more corporations will utilize IRM internally than externally. When used internally with a rights management server, you can ensure that only authorized users can open secured emails. If a member of your organization leaves the company, all you have to do is revoke her access to the rights management server to prevent her from opening any saved emails. Even if she archives their emails to a Personal Folders file and takes them on a CD when she leaves, she'll be unable to open the emails.

Security is a very serious issue for any company. Be sure to thoroughly investigate all the security features that Outlook 2003 has available.