The security of our email system is of utmost importance to the Pennsylvania College of Technology. Information that is sent over standard email can be compromised because the message is plain text. Because of this, the College requires the use of encrypted email to send confidential emails outside of the College email system. Examples of confidential information are Credit Card Information and Social Security information.
College email to external recipients is monitored and when confidential information is detected, it is sent to ITS for approval. If the information does not contain sensitive institutional data the email is submitted to the encryption process. That process will send the recipient of the email a notification that an encrypted email is waiting for them. To read this message, the user should click the link “Read the message”.
This will open the default internet browser and display the following webpage.
To access the encrypted message the recipient will need to authenticate to the Microsoft Email Encryption Portal. They will have a choice to login via Google (if sent to a Gmail address), log in via a Microsoft (if sent to any other email address), or to sign in using a one-time passcode. If a one-time passcode option is used, the recipient will receive another email containing a passcode to view the encrypted email.
Use this passcode to log in to the encrypted email portal.
After the user gains access to the encrypted message they can view the content of the email, and reply back to the sender. While the email thread exists it will be encrypted and protected accordingly.