O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems
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I'm getting confused Scott - Data at rest isn't currently a requirement to be encrypted, but damn, when the next rounds of legislation come, I'm sure it will be.
Is email something you don't care about at this time because once I mail it, assuming I only allows TLS based connections, it's not my concern anymore? Therefore send it and don't worry?
That's a new thought. One I've never seen until @TAHIN post above. Interesting.
As to your question about failure rate, sure people will complain about the requirement to login to get access to secure communications, hell they complain about having to create a logon to get access to the PHI in an online EHR. But I haven't see it be any more difficult than setting an the EHR logon, so it would be passed over quickly.
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@TAHIN said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
how is this any different than setting up a Zix account? or a Barracuda one?
You get a barracuda account so you can log in to un-encrypt your email. You get a MS account so you can be tracked/get sold/receive spam.
I'd say the other way around. I would never sign up for Barracuda, they are famous for their lack of security. I do not trust them at all.
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@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
I'm getting confused Scott - Data at rest isn't currently a requirement to be encrypted, but damn, when the next rounds of legislation come, I'm sure it will be.
It literally cannot be. If they did that, every medical practice would just back up and be done. You can't control data at rest for transferred data, ever. Period, it's actually a crime to try to do that as you'd have to hack their systems.
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I believe Barracuda, from their web interface after you log in and decrypt you email, gives you a Deliver option, that will deliver the unencrypted version to the original destination.
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@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
Is email something you don't care about at this time because once I mail it, assuming I only allows TLS based connections, it's not my concern anymore? Therefore send it and don't worry?
That's a new thought. One I've never seen until @TAHIN post above. Interesting.
That's what we've been saying for years
Email is secured from you to the customer. Or, the customer can decline security if they want (not take TLS.) You can optionally only send via TLS if you are that concerned, that's semi-valid.But all modern or 99% of modern email systems are secure from the sender to the recipient. Literally from the send button until they read it. Nearly all Exchange, Zimbra, Gmail and other email systems are all secure by default. Not just between systems, but internally and to the end user's workstation. So the security is incredibly thorough.
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@scottalanmiller said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
I'm getting confused Scott - Data at rest isn't currently a requirement to be encrypted, but damn, when the next rounds of legislation come, I'm sure it will be.
It literally cannot be. If they did that, every medical practice would just back up and be done. You can't control data at rest for transferred data, ever. Period, it's actually a crime to try to do that as you'd have to hack their systems.
The only resolution to legislation like that would be for the hospital to keep everything on-prem. Nothing would be transferred. Patients would log into a message box on their datacenter. This is currently how EHR applications with patient logons provide other information to patients.
(edit - provide, not deliver)
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@TAHIN said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
I believe Barracuda, from their web interface after you log in and decrypt you email, gives you a Deliver option, that will deliver the unencrypted version to the original destination.
Totally bypassing the whole point and tricking the sender into thinking that they secured something that they did not.
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@TAHIN said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@scottalanmiller said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
I'm getting confused Scott - Data at rest isn't currently a requirement to be encrypted, but damn, when the next rounds of legislation come, I'm sure it will be.
It literally cannot be. If they did that, every medical practice would just back up and be done. You can't control data at rest for transferred data, ever. Period, it's actually a crime to try to do that as you'd have to hack their systems.
The only resolution to legislation like that would be for the hospital to keep everything on-prem. Nothing would be transferred. Patients would log into a message box on their datacenter. This is currently how EHR applications with patient logons deliver other information to patients.
And even then, if the patient writes it down or takes a screen capture or a picture, the data is not encrypted at rest and the hospital is in violation because that's identical to having sent an email and them saving it locally.
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@Dashrender Just get hit by a Cryptowall variant. Everything is encrypted at rest then. Problem solved.
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@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
As to your question about failure rate, sure people will complain about the requirement to login to get access to secure communications, hell they complain about having to create a logon to get access to the PHI in an online EHR. But I haven't see it be any more difficult than setting an the EHR logon, so it would be passed over quickly.
But it is all extra steps without a purpose. It's all complaining that could be avoided.
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@scottalanmiller said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
No, that doesn't hold up. Encryption at rest is yet a third issue. Both of these mechanisms decrypt along the chain. Only the recipient, literally only they, can decide to be encrypted at rest. That's never something that you can force. You can force it on the sender's side, and this isn't doing that here. But you have to trust the recipient to store it in an encrypted fashion and... none will.
Eh? That's not how I understand how it works - most systems, the way I have seen it work, work as you mentioned - think GPG/PGP, the file is encrypted by me, emailed to them, then they can enter a password to open the file. Opening the file effectively takes it out of email. The original file inside email is still encrypted, unless the end user removes it from email and puts the unencrypted version back into their own system, therefore you'll still have email encrypted at rest.
If you send me an email and I open it to read it, GPG, Zix, PDF, 7Zip, doesn't matter... once I am opening that file, it is unencrypted. For me to save it and use it, I'm not going to save it encrypted, that's ridiculous. The natural progression of things means that you've forced me to use a system that is complicated and heavy in effort and actually caused me to save the file locally to be able to access it. So instead of the naturally more secure "storing it in email" system, it's not pushed me to store it locally.
If your goal is secure at rest, you've effectively social engineered that out of the system. In no case are you responsible for it at rest and in no case can you force it, but by doing this you are going dramatically out of your way to make it the least likely to happen.
LOL, pushed you out of that system, While I agree if you store it locally unencrypted, which I agree, everyone would do, it's definitely on the end user at that point.
But I will capitulate to the fact that once the email is delivered to the remote server, it's no longer my concern, the question is.. is it my responsibility to ensure that the admin of the remote server can't read it as well? If the answer is yes, then you still can't send plain text messages through the TLS pipe.. it still needs to be encrypted itself so that only the receiver can open it.
which brings about some questions - in a Zix setup, can the admin open the messages? How about the MS solution? Scott was claiming that if it's O365 to O365 it's basically useless, but is it really? Perhaps the messages sits encrypted on the server so O365 admins can't read it, but the decryption code is used as part of the end user's logon process.
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@TAHIN said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
how is this any different than setting up a Zix account? or a Barracuda one?
You get a barracuda account so you can log in to un-encrypt your email. You get a MS account so you can be tracked/get sold/receive spam.
Do you know for a fact that Barracuda isn't doing the same?
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@scottalanmiller said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
I'm getting confused Scott - Data at rest isn't currently a requirement to be encrypted, but damn, when the next rounds of legislation come, I'm sure it will be.
It literally cannot be. If they did that, every medical practice would just back up and be done. You can't control data at rest for transferred data, ever. Period, it's actually a crime to try to do that as you'd have to hack their systems.
Data at rest on my side, of course I can't force their side.
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@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
But I will capitulate to the fact that once the email is delivered to the remote server, it's no longer my concern, the question is.. is it my responsibility to ensure that the admin of the remote server can't read it as well? If the answer is yes, then you still can't send plain text messages through the TLS pipe.. it still needs to be encrypted itself so that only the receiver can open it.
The answer is no. It made to a receiving SMTP gateway with all the proper TLS stamps. Your job is 100% done.
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@scottalanmiller said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@TAHIN said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
I believe Barracuda, from their web interface after you log in and decrypt you email, gives you a Deliver option, that will deliver the unencrypted version to the original destination.
Totally bypassing the whole point and tricking the sender into thinking that they secured something that they did not.
yeah, that's a pretty horrible option if it's really there.
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@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
LOL, pushed you out of that system, While I agree if you store it locally unencrypted, which I agree, everyone would do, it's definitely on the end user at that point.
But it is definitely on them, no matter what. Period. It's equally on them in all cases. That's my whole point.
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@Dashrender said in [O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems](/topic/9231/o365-and-encrypted-mail-to-other-email-
I believe Barracuda, from their web interface after you log in and decrypt you email, gives you a Deliver option, that will deliver the unencrypted version to the original destination.
Totally bypassing the whole point and tricking the sender into thinking that they secured something that they did not.
yeah, that's a pretty horrible option if it's really there.
Right, it would be more like 2-step authentication and less about maintaining consistent security.
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@TAHIN , so - you guys are using a Barracuda appliance - why? According to Scott's and your arguments, it's completely unnecessary.
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@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
But I will capitulate to the fact that once the email is delivered to the remote server, it's no longer my concern, the question is.. is it my responsibility to ensure that the admin of the remote server can't read it as well? If the answer is yes, then you still can't send plain text messages through the TLS pipe.. it still needs to be encrypted itself so that only the receiver can open it.
Agreed, how do Zix or MS or Barracuda handle that? Anything that uses an account doesn't work. Because, for example, @Minion-Queen can access my O365 account, reset it and access my data. So the MS option does NOT protect against admin access to the data, which was my point earlier. The account admin still has access to everything, just like the Exchange admin did before. So... the whole thing is smoke and mirrors to trick people looking for a "security checkbox" but not looking for actual security.
GPG is what really does what you are looking for and trust me NO end user will do it.
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@scottalanmiller said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
@Dashrender said in O365 and encrypted mail to other email systems:
OK - this ^. Sadly the lawyer only consider this to be "secure email" Without this layer, sending an email is not considered secure, and fails audits.
Here is the bigger concern... this means that you have a social engineer in your midst that should not have access to the systems. So much bigger than your concerns around email security is letting someone who is actively scamming your business in to do an audit. This is, to me, an active criminal of sorts allowed in to look at these systems. That person AND whoever let them in are security vulnerabilities that you need to address.
As another auditor... I would flag those two people as serious issues that should not be allowed access to the records.
OK I'll admit that I tossed the lawyer thing out there for a point - I'm not actually being audited nor have I gone to a lawyer to ask (or my company hasn't asked). But i have read plenty - and you're going to tell me it's all wrong - on the internet that this is the requirement.
