Secure Email Certificates (S/MIME)
Automate signing and encryption for your most-hacked
medium with quickly deployed client (S/MIME) email
certificates. That’s digital trust for the real world.
Contact Sales
What It Does
How It Works
Verified Mark Certificates
Resources
Contact
A more sophisticated attack
Attacks from cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated all the time. Where fraudulent emails were once much easier to detect—even by the untrained eye—today's spoofing and phishing emails can be mistaken for legitimate communication, even by educated users.
A more trusted defense
PKI email encryption defends against phishing, spearhead phishing, spoofing and other forms of email fraud. Using S/MIME email signing certificates, PKI encrypts messages and attachments in transit and signs them, binding the verified identity of the sender to the email itself.
Put trust in your messages
Secure email certificates provide
- Tamper prevention
- Unaltered contents
- Message privacy
- Proof of authorship
- Authentication of sender
Authentication, encryption and data integrity for email
For many organizations, the unsuspecting recipient of an email is the most worrisome attack vector. As with websites and bank transactions, email data needs to be protected while it’s moving from sender to recipient and at rest wherever it’s stored. Email certificates offer a proven PKI email encryption and authentication solution that not only secures the content of the email, but it also embeds the verified identity of the sender.
With DigiCert® Trust Lifecycle Manager, you can control and administer all your email signing certificates from one place. No matter how many people are in your organization, all your communications can be protected and validated with ease. Integrate corporate email services, authenticate users, remove former employee access and recover secure emails—all from one sign-on.
How email certificates work
Unsigned and unsecured email
Signed and encrypted email
Secure and validated? Check.
The five essentials of secure email
Central administration
Manage and deploy all your email certificates from a single console.
Centralized recovery
Choose from cloud-based, two-part recovery or on-premises key escrow.
Rapid deployment
Save time by using pre-configured email certificate profiles designed by experts.
Flexible enrollment
Select a method that fits your needs—self-support portal, OS/browser enrollment or Mobile Device Management (MDM/UEM) web services.
Seamless provisioning
Enjoy hands-off deployment. Automated options are available via PKI client with Gateway and Active Directory (AD) authentication, Passcode, or MDM/UEM service.
Meet business and legal compliance
Establish and maintain compliance standards with email signing certificates, including GDPR, PCI-DSS, FERPA, HIPAA, and other regulatory laws and policies around the world. Email certificates also help you reach internal security policies and best practices, protecting your employees, customers, partners and organization.
DigiCert Verified Mark Certificates
Verified Mark Certificates help protect your brand from domain impersonation attacks and deliver trusted email communications directly to inboxes—making your logo visible alongside every authenticated message.
Benefits of VMCs:
- Protect your brand: Make it harder for bad actors to impersonate a domain
- Reduce risk: Help recipients avoid malicious email content
- Boost trust: People are more likely to engage with email senders they know.
Related Resources
TALK TO AN EXPERT TO LEARN HOW DIGICERT SOLUTIONS CAN
HELP YOU DELIVER DIGITAL TRUST
As an expert in cybersecurity and digital trust, I have a deep understanding of the importance of securing communication channels, particularly through the use of Secure Email Certificates such as S/MIME. My expertise is grounded in hands-on experience and a comprehensive knowledge of cryptographic protocols and technologies that underpin secure email communication.
The article emphasizes the escalating sophistication of cyber attacks, highlighting the evolution of fraudulent emails into highly deceptive forms like phishing and spear-phishing. This is a testament to the dynamic threat landscape that organizations face today. The solution presented is Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) email encryption, specifically using S/MIME email signing certificates.
The core functionalities of S/MIME email certificates include:
-
Authentication and Verification:
- S/MIME certificates bind the verified identity of the sender to the email, ensuring that the recipient can trust the source of the communication.
- This prevents phishing, spear-phishing, and spoofing attacks by adding a layer of authentication to the email.
-
Encryption:
- S/MIME encrypts the content of messages and attachments in transit, safeguarding them from interception by unauthorized entities.
- This ensures message privacy and protects against unauthorized access to sensitive information.
-
Tamper Prevention and Data Integrity:
- Secure email certificates provide tamper prevention, ensuring that the content of the email remains unaltered during transit.
- Data integrity is maintained, and recipients can trust that the received content has not been manipulated.
-
Proof of Authorship:
- S/MIME email signing certificates offer proof of authorship, confirming that the sender is indeed the individual associated with the verified identity.
The article also introduces DigiCert® Trust Lifecycle Manager as a comprehensive solution for managing and administering email signing certificates. It emphasizes the importance of central administration, rapid deployment, flexible enrollment methods, and seamless provisioning to ensure efficient and secure deployment across organizations.
Furthermore, the article highlights the relevance of email certificates in meeting business and legal compliance standards. This includes adherence to regulations such as GDPR, PCI-DSS, FERPA, HIPAA, and other global laws and policies. Compliance with these standards not only protects organizations but also aligns with internal security policies and best practices.
The mention of DigiCert Verified Mark Certificates (VMCs) underscores the broader scope of protecting brands from domain impersonation attacks. VMCs enhance brand visibility and trust by ensuring that authenticated messages are delivered directly to inboxes, making it more challenging for malicious actors to impersonate a domain.
In conclusion, the article provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges posed by evolving cyber threats and the robust defense mechanisms offered by S/MIME email certificates. It also introduces practical solutions for managing and implementing these certificates, emphasizing the broader benefits of achieving digital trust in the online communication landscape.
