Overview
You want to send encrypted messages from Microsoft Outlook with the Kerio Outlook Connector Offline Edition (KOFF) extension. In order to do this, an encryption setup is required within Outlook. This article shares the steps to add a certificate into Outlook so that encrypted messages can be sent.
Prerequisites
You should have a personal certificate available/downloaded on the machine from where you are accessing Microsoft Outlook. The certificate can be acquired in one of the following 2 ways:
- Acquire it with the help of Systems/IT Administrators of the company.
- Follow Microsoft's recommendations to get a digital certificate.
You must have a separate certificate for each of your email addresses, including any aliases.
Solution
- Login to your account on Microsoft Outlook.
- Click on the File option in the top-left corner:
- Click on Options in the bottom-left corner:
- Click on Trust Center > Trust Center Settings:
- Select Email Security > Import/Export...:
- Click on Browse and it will bring up a dialog box from where you need to select you personal certificate (a file with PFX extension). Once selected, enter the password for the same and click OK. This will take you back to the dialog box in the previous step:
- Click on Settings to define a default behavior for encrypted emails:
- Give the setting a name and modify other settings as per your requirement and then click on OK:
- Click on OK in the Trust Center dialog box:
Testing
When you create a new email in Outlook, new options for encryption will be seen in the Options tab:
Note: An encrypted message cannot be sent without the recipient having sent you a digitally signed email first, as per the Encrypting Messages in Kerio Connect article. This is because encryption cannot occur without the recipient's public certificate having been added to your certificate store. If you attempt to send an encrypted message without the recipients' public certificate having been received, you will receive an error:
