Make secure email simple for senders and recipients.

Why add protection for sensitive email?

If your organization uses Microsoft 365 for email, your messages already benefit from built-in security features. One of those protections is called TLS (Transport Layer Security). You do not normally see or interact with it. Think of TLS as a secure connection between your email system and the recipient's email system.

Microsoft 365 normally attempts to use TLS when sending email to another organization. When the receiving system supports it, TLS encrypts the connection while the email is being delivered. For most everyday email, this happens automatically in the background.

What is TLS, in plain language?

TLS stands for Transport Layer Security. It scrambles information while it travels over a connection, so someone intercepting that connection cannot simply read it. For email, think of it as a protected tunnel between two mail systems. The systems at each end can read the message, but the connection helps keep outsiders from reading it along the way.

That protection applies to the connection, not every later use of the message. Once the email reaches the receiving system, TLS alone does not control who opens it, whether it is forwarded, or how it is stored. The recipient's email service may have separate protections for stored messages.

A secure-delivery service adds rules for sensitive messages, such as requiring an approved encrypted delivery method or having the recipient sign in to a secure portal. TLS can be part of that process; the difference is the additional control over delivery.

The challenge: you do not control the other end.

When you send information outside your organization, you generally do not know what email system the recipient uses, which security features they have enabled, or whether their system meets your requirements for sensitive information.

Standard email delivery is designed to get the message delivered. If the receiving system cannot establish the expected secure connection, additional security policies are needed to prevent sensitive information from being sent using a less-protected method.

This is where ZixEncrypt provides an additional layer of protection.

How ZixEncrypt works.

With ZixEncrypt, your organization establishes a policy for how sensitive information must be delivered. Employees do not have to work out how each recipient's email security is configured.

Your organization sets the required level of protection, and ZixEncrypt applies the appropriate secure-delivery method.

Why not just rely on TLS?

TLS is an important and effective security technology. The distinction is what each protection does:

For confidential communication, you can establish a consistent rule: sensitive information must use an approved secure-delivery method.

What information should you protect?

Many everyday business messages contain information that deserves extra care, including:

• Employee and payroll records
• Tax documents and financial information
• Customer or patient information
• Legal documents
• Personally identifiable information and other confidential business data

Instead of relying on employees to judge another company's email security, your organization sets the policy. This gives your team a consistent process for sending sensitive information through an approved secure-email service.

Protection for the reply, too.

When a recipient reads a protected message through the Zix secure experience and replies within that system, the response returns through the same protected channel. That helps keep both sides of the conversation within an approved secure method. The recipient needs to reply through that protected experience for this protection to apply.

One part of a responsible security approach.

No security product can prevent every compromised account, stolen password, or instance of an authorized recipient sharing information improperly. ZixEncrypt does not eliminate legal or regulatory responsibilities. It provides greater control and a consistent process for protecting sensitive information when it leaves your organization.