So Do We Need to Fix This Problem?

A growing number of organizations should already be implementing secure messaging solutions. For example, sending medical information regarding patients by regular Internet mail should not be legal. Other high-risk or high-security organizations, such as government agencies and financial institutions, are implementing policies to reduce or even remove the risk of information getting into the wrong hands.

Even as a private citizen, you should wonder what kind of information you're unwittingly sharing with the Internet community via SMTP. It's really a bit like sharing all your private files on your hard disk with the entire Internet community, isn't it?

This chapter provides you with the details of secure messaging, especially as regards GroupWise. And really, in the end it isn't as complicated as it might look now. This chapter discusses some general ideas and techniques for securing your email messages and then focuses on an important technique called Secure MIME (S/MIME). For more information on secure messaging, try Secure Messaging with PGP and S/MIME, written by Rolf Oppliger; it's really a bit like a Swiss army knife on this subject (and he's actually from Switzerland). It's not an easy read, but it is very concise and is probably the only book that covers both PGP and S/MIME in depth. Be sure to take a look at the reference lists at the end of the chapter for more information.