Office 365 (Outlook) - Protect Feature (Encrypted Messages)
Microsoft recently debuted a new "Encrypt" feature in Outlook on the web and Outlook 2016. This feature will allow you to send emails that are protected from copying, forwarding, and/or printing.
In Outlook on the web, when composing a new email, users can opt to Encrypt an email by clicking the button between Attach and Discard:
By default, this will apply the Do Not Forward policy to the email, which prohibits the recipient from forwarding the message, printing the message, as well as copying the message's contents. External recipients will receive a message from O365 stating that they were sent a Encrypted message and are then prompted to open it by using a one-time passcode. Alternatively, external recipients can use their third party email account (e.g. gmail, Yahoo, outlook.com) to sign in and view the message.
If you click Change Permissions in the banner that appears, you can select from multiple permission levels:
When UWM - Confidential is selected as the permission level, the recipient can forward the message, but cannot print or copy its contents. When UWM - Confidential View Only is selected for the message, the recipient cannot do anything with the message except read and delete it. Both of these permission levels can only be used for internal (UWM) recipients. When Encrypt is selected for the message, the message can be forwarded, copied, or printed but the encryption cannot be removed.
This functionality also exists in Outlook 2016 for Windows. Click Options in the menu bar when composing a message, then click Permissions and go to Connect to Rights Management Servers and get templates:
-Click "New Email"
-Click "Options" > "Permission"
You can then select one of the 4 protection options:
Click Options in the menu bar when composing a message and click Permissions.
Click Verify Credentials. You will then be asked to sign in with your UWM credentials.
You can then select Do Not Forward, UWM - Confidential, or UWM - Confidential View Only as protection options:
Additionally, you can select the Encrypt Message protection option by clicking Security in the Options menu bar:
Then, click Encrypt Message:
Check out the following Microsoft articles for more details on the Encrypt feature:
- Learn about protected messages
- How do I open a protected message
- Office 365 Essentials: Office Message Encryption Video (YouTube)
- Email encryption and rights protection
- Introduction to IRM for email messages