Secure E-mail in Windows Environment

Ferenc Telbisz

KFKI RMKI Computer Networking Centre and MATÁV PKI-FI

One of the oldest and most popular Internet service is the E-mail. Its popularity is shown also by the fact that - similarly to the internet browsers - not a few freeware E-mail clients exist and even a couple of E-mail servers are also available. In the same time the careless use of E-mail presents considerable risks. Today the viruses and worms are spread mostly by E-mail. As the passwords are normally forwarded unencrypted on the Internet they can be easily stolen by unauthorised foreign persons. This puts a serious risk not only for our data or for the data of other persons, but the security of whole systems is put on hazard.

The presentation reviews the generally available freeware E-mail clients for Windows systems (Eudora, Netscape and Mozilla, Outlook Express, PC-Pine, Pegasus, etc.) as well as their conformity to the desired service and security criteria. A detailed and pragmatic discussion of the utilisation of the password protection in the different E-mail clients is given. Finally the "E-mail roaming" is shortly discussed: how can the travelling user - who is connected to different ISP-s from time to time - continue his or her normal E-mail correspondence.