As promised, Microsoft is rolling out new security features to Outlook.com. The company said earlier this month that its online email client would soon introduce email encryption and an email forward prevention feature to better secure messages for all Outlook.com users. The rollout unsurprisingly arrives after Google unleashed a revamp of its web-based Gmail client on Wednesday.
The new email encryption component essentially means the message remains encrypted from end to end, preventing hackers from reading your emails if they intercept and leak your communication. Recipients not using Outlook.com or Office 365 will receive a link to a trusted Office 365 webpage to either get a one-time passcode to read the message or re-authenticate with a trusted provider. Otherwise, messages can be decoded via Outlook.com, the Outlook apps for mobile, and Outlook for desktop.
“When composing an email in Outlook.com, sensitive information like social security numbers can be detected to provide you with a suggestion to send with encryption,” Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, said in a statement.
As for the “prevent forwarding” feature, this component puts a leash on your emails, preventing recipients from forwarding and/or copying emails you send through Outlook.com. Even more, all attachments sent through Outlook.com with the Prevent Forwarding feature switched on will be encrypted.
That said, if a recipient downloads your attached file and sends it to someone else, it can’t be opened. The same restriction applies if the recipient saves your email as a file and sends it as an attachment. This keeps the conversations and data exchanged between you and the recipient private and prevents sharing (unless by you, of course).
The two new features will appear on Outlook.com once you create a new message. The “encrypt” drop-down menu resides next to the Attach button and provides options to simply encrypt the message, or encrypt and prevent forwarding.
The news arrives after Google launched a revision of its web-based Gmail client. It’s mostly an interface upgrade so you can manage your volumes of email faster and more easily. For instance, move the cursor over an email and see a new overlay with options to archive, delete, mark as read/unread, and snooze the message.
“Gmail will also ‘nudge’ you to follow up and respond to messages with quick reminders that appear next to your email messages to help make sure nothing slips through the cracks,” Gmail product manager Matthew Izatt said.
Gmail currently doesn’t provide an end-to-end encryption component, or does it prevent recipients from forwarding your email. To encrypt messages, Gmail users must install an extension in Chrome such as Secure Mail by Streak. It inserts a lock button next to the Compose button and requires you to generate a password the recipient will need to open the message. The recipient also needs the extension installed in Chrome as well.
The two new features added to Outlook.com are part of a larger security update to Office 365. New goodies include File Restore for personal OneDrive accounts, ransomware detection and recovery, password-protected sharing links, and more.
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