Corporate Encryption: How to compose an encrypted message
Our new user-friendly interface makes sending and receiving encrypted messages a breeze. The redesign really focused on the end user, and how the software would be used on a daily basis. We made sure to include flexible options to be able to securely share sensitive information to a Contact, or a group of Contacts all at once.
Option 1: Sending an encrypted message by email
There are a few ways to send an encrypted message with ExchangeDefender. The first being the traditional way – typing in the email dress of your recipient, adding the subject of the message, along with any attachments, and clicking Send.
From your Dashboard, the steps would look like this: Inbox > Compose email button > New Message.
Option 2: Sending an encrypted message by URL
The second option in sending encrypted messages is highly customizable which includes the ability to send secure message by URL, or by text message. As of right now, ExchangeDefender offers the only omnichannel solution for message encryption allowing you to send messages securely to web services as well as mobile devices via SMS.
ExchangeDefender Encryption enables you to send encrypted messages to web sites and services while maintaining top security of your sensitive information.
How does it work?
The system generates a short URL that can be copied and pasted into Slack, Teams, Facebook, social media, or any other web site or service. URL Encrypted Messages are among the most popular features of ExchangeDefender Encryption because it provides a secure authentication layer, automatically deletes the content, and provides advanced tracking.
How do you generate the shareable secure link?
The process is exactly the same as sending a message to an email address, group, or mobile device. First, be sure to select the URL button, then type your subject, message, add an attachment (optional) and click Send.
Once you click the Send button, a pop-up form will appear with the link to your secure message. You can copy and paste this link to the contacts whom you wish to have access.
Option 3: Sending an encrypted message by SMS Message
“We’ll just text it to you” is an easy way to deliver a secure message while still keeping the contents in your custody in your secure Inbox. ExchangeDefender Encryption enables you to send encrypted messages to mobile devices via SMS / text messages.
Sending a secure message to the mobile device is same as sending any other encrypted message through ExchangeDefender encryption – with one important difference – you only need to know the recipients mobile phone number.
Simply, tap the Compose
Email button, then select SMS tab to create an encrypted message with
SMS delivery.
The recipient will receive an SMS message with the link to the secure encrypted
message. When they click on it, the default web browser on the phone will go to
the secure SSL-encrypted web site and show them the message and contents.
Please note: SMS messages and URL messages only support Basic Security encryption because they are not sent to an email address that could be used as a login. Please make sure that you enforce tight expiration window, and please setup a password to minimize the chance of unauthorized access.
ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption – SMS & Secure Texting Feature
We recently won a very large financial institution contract with our ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption by solving a not-so-unique problem many businesses have with their encryption solution:
“It’s a disaster. I spend more time resending encrypted messages or walking clients through how to access forms than I do on actual processing.”
This is what we heard over and over – email encryption solutions are ugly, not intuitive, not very user friendly, and half the time they get lost somewhere along the way. If your business has a loan officer doing email support, your email encryption is not working for your business.
“Sometimes we just text them parts of it blurred out so we can move ahead until they come into our branch.”
What if you could text them, but securely?
Mobile phones have become so ubiquitous that they are already being used a secondary security credential (via 2 factor authentication or OTP) – and now ExchangeDefender enables you to rely on them to securely grant access to confidential or sensitive information
ExchangeDefender makes this easy by allowing you to simply send anything you need to handle securely to your clients phone via SMS/text. And to do so while being even more secure than with email. Unlike email, that multiple people (from admin to IT) have access to, only you have access to your phone. Nobody else, with your credentials, can snoop on that. So compose a message, type in a phone number and send them the link to the document and attachments securely.
But ExchangeDefender Corporate Security makes that even better and more safe. First, you can password protect the message and either give them in a call or using other means. You can even make sure that they cannot share it or that it would get compromised later – just set the message to expire after it’s been viewed.
And of course you will be alerted when they actually click on the link and access your message.
You can even track it.
ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption is truly enabling multi-platform secure sharing of secret, sensitive, and personally identifiable information. With our SMS/text feature, you can now reach people on their mobile devices and get them secure access to the information without an app or without dealing with their email issues. Best of all, your message never leaves you, the clients only get the link – so if you made a mistake, you can revoke and destroy the message immediately.
This level of secure messaging and audit trail is unprecedented – and now you can say “I’ll just text it to you, but securely. Password is encryption and it will auto-destroy after you pick it up.”
ExchangeDefender “Certified Letter” Encryption Highlight
ExchangeDefender recently launched our second update for 2020 Corporate Encryption, and the feature that caught the most attention from our partners was the ability to send and control sensitive content via URL (i.e. web):
At ExchangeDefender, we simply call this Certified Delivery. When you absolutely, positively, totally must get the information to the third party securely – know who, where, and when accessed it – and that it will automatically expire/destroy the contents so you don’t have to track it or worry.
How to securely share info on the web
As a subscriber to ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption, you have access to our encryption portal at https://encryption.exchangedefender.com. You can even bookmark this shortcut so you can quickly send messages straight from your browser.
Once there, click on Quick Actions > Compose Mail. Select URL.
Type up your recipient’s name, subject, message, and attach any attachments you may want. After you click on Send you will see the following popup:
That is it. Your secure link is generated and you can paste it anywhere you want. It is as simple and as fast as that.
But suppose you wanted to get some more control over the message and our automated policy enforcement. Click on Advanced Options:
This is where the power of ExchangeDefender really shines as it integrates into the client’s unique business requirements, which may vary depending on the information, recipient, and sensitivity.
For example, I am going to be sharing a secure message with an attachment that is time sensitive. I am setting it to automatically delete itself after 2 days, meaning I don’t have to come back and delete it myself. I also want to make sure that this message gets destroyed as soon as the person I sent it to views it – that way I minimize the likelihood that whoever is snooping on their computer / phone can get the same data. And because I am not actually sending any data to their PC, I have full control – meaning I can revoke/delete this message before they get to it too. I am also adding a secondary password to this message that I will communicate separately. For extra piece of mind, I am also asking Corporate Encryption to send me an email when someone picks up this sensitive message.
But wait, there is more
Sharing sensitive information comes with responsibility to keep the system accountable – you want to know if they got the message, when they got the message, where they accessed it from, and ultimately what they did with it. So ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption offers you a variety of ways to do this easily. The best option is the Activity tab in the Encryption Portal:
Here you can track down the activity for each message you send, export the data for analysis, or just save it for your records. There is even a weekly email report if you don’t want to get flooded by email notifications when you share info with multiple people that might be accessing it frequently. ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption brings several additional layers of information control and accountability. It actively works to keep you, and your information, more secure. And we’re thrilled to be able to save our clients time on tasks they do every day – to see more of what our clients asked us to build, take a look at the webinar recording!
Email Encryption: New Security, Productivity, and Advanced Reporting Features Released
ExchangeDefender Email Encryption: When you need to make sure your message was read, securely.
ExchangeDefender is proud to announce the launch of a new version of ExchangeDefender Email Encryption, our second update to this service in 2020 built entirely from user feedback.
Covid-19 pandemic has permanently changed how we exchange secure documents with people outside of our organization. In 2020, encrypted email has become a standard for secure delivery of confidential information. When you absolutely needed to make sure your documents got delivered and received, you’d turn to a fax machine or certified mail – but in 2020 with remote work and reducing touch or even office – we’re turning to Email Encryption. It’s no surprise that Email Encryption is now our most popular service.
For this new release, we went back to our users with a question: How can we make you more productive?
Encrypted Email is the modern version of a certified letter
When you have sensitive information that you need to make sure stays confidential, email encryption is your go-to solution. In fact, the biggest complaint about email encryption is usually about how clunky and user unfriendly it is. This is because email encryption was not designed with a sender or recipient in mind, but the IT and Corporate Compliance Officer staff that needed to protect ordinary email flow and keep any sensitive information from leaking out.
We wanted to solve this problem so we focused the new version on productivity.
This meant spending more time perfecting the user experience, both for the person in charge of sending sensitive information and making sure that the recipient can easily and safely access the message. With no training, no obstacles, no software installation, and accessibility anywhere, anytime.
Almost all of the corporate effort in email encryption is focused on acronyms and alphabet soup of regulatory requirements that are largely automated. But the real opportunity – and our clients identified obvious pain points – is in the day-to-day use of the email encryption system to send confidential information and make sure it’s received.
Sending Encrypted Messages
Our biggest goal was to make sure everyone could send encrypted messages without a ton of effort – so we’ve made it possible to subscribe to Corporate Encryption without subscribing to ExchangeDefender at all. Yes, it’s available a la carte and you just need to sign up (no MX record changes, no hosting provider changes, just sign in to the encryption portal and click Send).
For our clients that live in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web App, we’ve made it even simpler with the ExchangeDefender Encrypted Email addin. Now email encryption is just one click away.
Our biggest challenge was to make encryption easy to use – with so many powerful features and settings, modern email encryption solutions feel like an airplane cockpit to many white collar workers. We started by simplifying the user interface and giving IT/Compliance Officers the ability to create default organization policies – so users only need to worry about the message and where it’s going. All the advanced options are just a click away, enabling users to tweak email encryption to meet any unique business task.
So we’ve made it easier to obtain, easier to get started, and beyond effortless to use!
Controlling & Automating Encryption
We did not forget about our power users and our new release has all the features our clients have requested. Advanced Options no longer clutter the screen, but they are only a click away.
Once you customize the policy for a new message you have the option of saving it as a new policy and simply reusing it later (instead of always going through all the settings).
Regardless of the industry or the role we spoke to, our clients stressed that one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work. While all appreciate and understand that there is a security policy requiring encryption of sensitive data, the pain point for everyone is the notification system: We all have to comply with the encryption policy, but we’d all like more flexibility with how we’re notified about our encrypted messages. Simply put, it can depend on the content, the urgency, the concern for how the message is shared with 3rd parties, and even on who is being contacted. As one office manager told us:
“When I’m sending a letter to our attorney or CPA, I need to know the moment they got it. But when I send out 300+ lab reports, I really don’t want to get 600 notification emails. I wish I could manage how chatty the service is for each situation”
Now you can – just save the new policy and reuse it as often as needed.
Important thing is, everyone stays secure using the default organizational encryption policy. New users don’t need to be trained or taught every single setting, they can just rely on the corporate policy that assures they don’t make mistakes.
Tracking Encrypted Messages
One of the biggest additions to Corporate Encryption is the Activity Report. As our users consistently put it: “Encryption is half about protecting the content and half about making sure it got to the recipient”
Tracking receipt of messages using encryption solutions is generally about searching through tons of email notifications: finding a specific message and what happened to it is an analytical process. We fixed that, for power users and occasional users alike.
If you’re constantly sending encryption messages, tracking them becomes simple using our encryption portal that is accessible from any PC or mobile device. Simply login at https://encryption.exchangedefender.com (branded URLs coming soon) and click on the Activity tab. Here you can locate a specific message and see every activity related to it.
If you’re after a report, you can also use our powerful filtering to select the right action, date range, and contents – then just export it to PDF, Excel, CSV or just print out the web page and you’re done.
If you are not a power user, but send a lot of encrypted messages, we’re making your life simpler as well. Instead of getting an email every time something happens, you will now get a weekly email report showing you all of the messages you sent and what got delivered, read, printed, forwarded, etc.
Simple. Encrypted. Reported.
ExchangeDefender’s new Corporate Encryption is all about giving organizations better control over their sensitive information. For many business purposes surrounding security and data leakage, ExchangeDefender’s powerful encryption policies, lexicons, pattern recognition, and support for hundreds of regulatory standards will help keep you safe.
ExchangeDefender is about more than just safe, we’re about safety and productivity. Our new UI will make sending confidential information faster and simpler. Our new policies will make custom notification templates and message control effortless. Our ability to make an encryption platform that fits the way you run your business, be it email or a shared URL or even an SMS message — that future is now.
Get Ready for 2021: New services, new SKUs, new promotions
ExchangeDefender, like almost all small businesses worldwide, is having a challenging time managing the Covid-19 crisis. From having our headquarters on the 12th floor of a downtown Orlando high-rise, to undertaking a massive and complex migration, to team dealing with family and health issues, this spring and summer has really forced us to grow and quick. I’m sure you’re dealing with the same and I want you to know that we’re fully committed to growth this year and putting you into a better position to profit from cybersecurity.
While the economic disruption will certainly be forcing some businesses into a hibernation or worse, my travel always reminds me what a blessing and a privilege it is to own a business. It comes with responsibility – to clients, to partners, to vendors, and to our team. We don’t have the luxury of slowing things down and seeing how things look in a year or two – we are actively attacked 24/7/365 – we have no chance but to act, secure, and grow so we can continue to defend networks today and provide a security layer for the threats we’ll encounter tomorrow.
Over the past two years we have focused on development and modernizing of all ExchangeDefender services. In the spring, when Covid-19 started, everyone got a free Wrkoo portal, which we are committing to keeping free because we need our partners and clients to communicate through this interruption. We’ve also released a brand new LiveArchive product that will usher a new era of security and redundancy services for Gmail and Microsoft 365. We’ve upgraded everyone to the latest Microsoft 365 SKU, which not only introduced new features but reduced support load by 90%!!! We’ve hired more developers and have an aggressive feature roadmap taking us through the end of 2021.
While we have raised our rates over the years, many of our partners have benefited from us not auditing invoices, not expiring some of the promotional services, not reclassifying passthrough billing (which is prohibited), not enforcing the $100 monthly minimum for monthly payments, etc. We hope this advantage has allowed you to grow and profit, and you’ll be happy to hear that the new SKU’s scheduled for 2020/2021 are still significantly lower than the market average.
Later this fall (November 1st), we will be expiring old/defunct SKUs. To find current pricing, please download the Partner Guide from our portal.
Personally, I understand that price increases suck. There is no such thing as a good time to raise prices. Yet people do it all the time, and when we look at our roadmap and what our clients are demanding: they are asking for more security, not cheap security. When we look at our top performing partners, they aren’t selling Essentials and freeware, they sell the best. While I know that the decision to standardize our pricing and enforce the rules will cost us some business, our focus is on putting out the best product and service. Many of you that have followed or worked with me over the years know that my personal hero is Ayrton Senna, and that I frequently talk about his mastery of a wet race track. How did he get that good? Truth is, Senna bombed his first go cart wet race. Determined to get better, he put his wet gear in a bag and got on the track just as the rain started. Partners, clients, friends – in the tech business you don’t get ahead with cheap and aging technology – the security demands are only going to get greater and we want to make sure that we can keep you safely in business for years to come. We’re up for that challenge, and we hope you like all the enhancements we’ll continue bringing to our service.
ExchangeDefender Service Cancellation Schedule
ExchangeDefender has always tried to help our partners when it comes to billing management. Perhaps you’ve noticed that no matter when you sign up for the service during the month you are not charged. Not even a prorated amount.
The terms of service do require a 30 day notice, but we understand that sometimes our IT partners are too busy to remember to cancel stuff. As we’ve grown over the years, it’s become necessary to lock down our subscription management a few days before the billing cycle that runs on the 1st. Inevitably someone forgets or waits till the last moment and opens a ticket nearly at midnight making for an awkward pointing to terms of service. Worse, some partners make their staff wait till the last of the month to manage cancellations and adjustments, which stresses everyone out unnecessarily.
So we’ve got a solution. When you come to delete / cancel the service you will be given the option of selecting a cancellation date. This allows our partners to have the service scheduled for automatic deletion so you don’t have to worry or wait until the end of the month. Now that this bit is automated, our team will no longer accept cancellations of services unless they are made through the Service Manager
Final Update: Exchange Migration
We wanted to offer one final update before we close the ExchangeDefender NOC covering our Exchange migration.
The past few days have been largely consumed with cleanup and misc configuration requests already covered here. By far the biggest issue has been reseeding and legacy copies of mailboxes exceeding 25GB – using nearly all internal, Microsoft/powershell, and third party tools there seems to be no predictable, foolproof, failsafe way to migrate a mailbox. The larger mailbox gets, the more difficult it seems to port (one particular user has been waiting on their mail for 2 weeks – they have a 70 GB mailbox – and it’s taken dozens of attempts of repair/recheck/export/move/seed/verify) and it has been the greatest source of frustration for us and for our clients, largely because the progress indicators are unreliable and process very prone to failure the larger the mailbox gets. This is why when we started offering 2016 years ago we set up the 50GB quota with 15GB realtime and 35GB in place archive setup so we can deliver on both service restoration and disaster recovery.
We are continuing to assist our partners in the following areas:
– Outlook connectivity (if it keeps on prompting you for a password you need autodiscoverregistryhacks.zip)
– Distribution Group (External) and External Forwards UI (we discovered a bug, the control panel will be back over the weekend and in meantime we’ll create it for you manually with a ticket request)
– Cancelled services (as of yesterday 6/18 we have the ability to remove organizations from ExchangeDefender/O365, so if you client cancelled or went to another service even within O365, open a ticket and request that we delete the org. You can do so on your own as well if you’ve deleted all the mailboxes/forwards/groups.)
– IoT/SMTP (while Exchange/O365 does support SMTP connectivity, managing it through our IoT connector is far more secure and reliable)
– Implementation of Shared Mailboxes. Please, please, please, please DO NOT use Public Folders anymore, for any purpose. Create a Shared Mailbox instead.
At this point everyone can connect, mail delivery and legacy reseeding are in progress, all systems for Exchange, ExchangeDefender, and LiveArchive are working normally.
We’re looking forward to closing this ugly chapter. We have done everything in our power, and we couldn’t be more thankful for our partners who have helped us with the cleanup of the Microsoft disaster. Thank you. We are sorry that so many clients were inconvenienced with this, we planned and managed every step of this migration by the book with thousands of other successful migrations that happened from 2016 – Aug 2019, but when your vendor pulls the rug underneath you and damages hundreds of mailboxes unannounced… many of us will soon be enjoying the first day off in June. The only good news is, you will not have to go through this process again.
Exchange Upgrades Complete
So far 2020 has been surprising on every level, and our legacy Exchange infrastructure was not going to be missing in action: As of May 31st, at 10 PM EST we have decommissioned our legacy Exchange and have moved everyone to the new Office365 SKU (Exchange2016/2019) to provide the best email experience Microsoft has to offer.
We do not anticipate any major issues. Months of engineering/testing/backups went into making this move as smooth as possible, and we really hope you like it.
If there is an issue, we can help:
We have increased staffing levels around the clock from May 31 – June 6th to help our clients and partners with any issues that may come up. If you run into any issues whatsoever, please keep in mind that there are two ways to get your mail even if Outlook is having issues:
Outlook Web App / Outlook Web Access
ExchangeDefender LiveArchive
https://nge.exchangedefender.com
Both of these systems will allow you to continue sending/receiving email while we we help figure out what isn’t working right. Here are the best ways to get in touch with us:
ExchangeDefender Support Portal
If you do not have an account in our support portal, please submit your issue here:
https://www.exchangedefender.com/help
If neither works, call us*:
USA (877) 546-0316
World: +1 (407) 465-6800
Support portal is the best way to get things done, but if you call or go through the 3rd party help site, we will get your issue into our portal and will work on the issue until everything is sorted out. We thank you in advance for your patience and we look forward to having you on the newer, more reliable, email experience.
Sincerely, Vlad Mazek
CEO
ExchangeDefender
Rise of “a la carte” offerings at ExchangeDefender
Traditionally, ExchangeDefender has been an email security platform, first and foremost. In order to secure your email on its way to/from your email infrastructure, your MX records needed to point at us and all your mail was secured using our platform. In May of 2020, that changed.
As of June 2020, you can offer ExchangeDefender solutions without ExchangeDefender or mail going through to us at all. It’s no secret that all the add-on cool features in ExchangeDefender (LiveArchive, Web File Server, Encryption, Compliance) are in their 3rd or 4th generation, and those services are in huge demand on their own.
You will shortly be able to purchase most of our offerings directly without the complexity of joining our partner program and without needing to implement a bunch of other features if you only need a way to securely collaborate. Our web site, ExchangeDefender.com will remain a partner-centric experience and we are introducing a new site used to manage ordering and processing of subscriptions to our a la carte services.
Our partners will be able to continue provisioning and ordering ExchangeDefender services as is. As a partner you’ll also have a choice of placing orders through the new a la carte service as well (if you don’t want to be involved in management, support, etc for your users) just without discounts and incentives (since we’ll be doing all that work now).
We strongly believe that our partner ecosystem provides a lot of value to the organizations that consider IT security to be critical to their success. The reality is that many do not, and our partners tend not to sell services to clients they deem too small or too unprofitable for the overall offering: now we have the means and ways to help them through service bundles and individual service offerings specifically designed for the cloud.
If you’d like to be on a beta test, please let us know, the new platform will launch next week!
Introducing ExchangeDefender Broadcast Messages
ExchangeDefender is making it simple to reach all users in your organization using broadcast messages. This service is convenient for business cases where you need to reach every user at the client site or every single user protected by ExchangeDefender.
ExchangeDefender Broadcast Messages are easy, simple, automated, and free.
Simple – Sending a broadcast message is simple. Go to admin.exchangedefender.com, login as a Service Provider and click on Broadcast Messages.
Automatic – Broadcast Messages are always up to date and require no management or maintenance, for compliance purposes you can be certain every address on the domain will get the message.
Flexible – Messages support full HTML and our user friendly editor can help you design beautiful messages.
Branded – To save time, each message will automatically get the logo and contact information from the Service Provider contact information data.
How-to Guide
To send a message simply go to https://admin.exchangedefender.com, login as the service provider , and click on Broadcast Messages.
You will be prompted to choose an audience: specific domains (allowing you to pick from the list) or everyone. Type your message and hit Preview. You will see your message here, and it looks exactly the same as your recipients will see it in their Inbox. There are two checkboxes on the bottom to insert your logo and insert a default signature. If you are happy with the look of it click on Submit and messages will be sent within 60 seconds.