The public key is what an e-mail sender will need to encrypt an e-mail sent to you. This post steps through the creation of your own personal public/private key pair. If Bob wants to send me an e-mail, he will need my public key to encrypt the e-mail. When Bob receives the encrypted e-mail, Bob’s e-mail client uses his personal private key to decrypt the e-mail. As an example, if I want to send an e-mail to Bob, I will need Bob’s public key to encrypt the e-mail. Conversely, if someone wants to send you an encrypted e-mail, that person needs your public key. Since certificates are based on public key encryption, please keep in mind that you will need to have the public key of the intended e-mail recipient in order to encrypt the e-mail. A (Very) Brief Primer on Public Key Encryption
#Office 2016 outlook self signed digital certificate windows 10
UPDATED (January 2022): I tested the steps on a Windows 10 64-bit machine using the Win64 OpenSSL v1.1.1m Light distribution (EXE) from Win32/Win64 OpenSSL Installer for Windows – Shining Light Productions. It will guide you through the steps to add your self-signed certificates to the iOS Mail app for S/MIME. Please see the the guide for installing S/MIME certificates on iOS devices. Most well-known e-mail clients support S/MIME and this post provides instructions for creating your own certificate authority (CA) to create self-signed S/MIME certificates. While this post doesn’t address the larger systemic issues around private information transfer, it does provide a basic method for public key encryption and signing of MIME data (e-mail) using the S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) standard. If you’ve ever been through the process of buying a home, the amount of sensitive information that is transferred between the various parties is astounding and, from my experience, it is primarily done through plain-text e-mail (gasp). What if you need to send an e-mail containing sensitive information? Do you send anything and everything through e-mail without concern for prying eyes? Recent news stories about e-mail account hacks and interceptions by third-parties make me even more hesitant and unwilling to send anything of importance through standard plain-text e-mail.