Bayer Business Services: eMail

Secure e-mail traffic – even on the road
E-mail messages are transmitted in the clear over the Internet. They are comparable to postcards, which can be read by many people during transport. Messages have to be encrypted to protect their confidential contents from prying eyes, but this is difficult to do for external e-mail traffic since the recipients work with a number of different e-mail systems. To enable encrypted communications in this environment, Bayer Business Systems offers a simple and highly efficient solution based on S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Internet standard.

S/MIME is a process for encrypting e-mail traffic with external partners. Because many e-mail programs support S/MIME, all external communication partners generally meet the technical requirements for its use.

Automatic certification process

The core of this solution makes use of Lotus Notes certificates and workflow properties integrated into Lotus Notes. Signing the request e-mail ensures the validation of the person requesting the S/MIME certificate. The subsequent certification process is automatic, with suitable monitoring and alerting tools to ensure that it goes smoothly.

Provision is made for this infrastructure to be expanded into a PKI (public key infrastructure). In cryptology, PKI refers to a system that issues, distributes and checks digital certificates. The certificates issued as part of a PKI are usually bound to persons or machines and used to secure computer-assisted communication.

Increasing importance of mobile communication

Securing mobile communication is also becoming increasingly important. Bayer Business Services also developed a solution in this sector that makes it possible to send and receive confidential e-mail with a BlackBerry, which was previously impossible.

Bayer Business Services closed the gap with an innovation project in which the key used in the Lotus Notes environment to secure Internet e-mail (S/MIME with private-public key encryption) is placed on a smart card. In this process, the key is secured in such a way that once recorded on the smart card (crypto card) it cannot be removed again.

Confidentiality guaranteed

This guarantees the confidentiality of the e-mail message. Only the sender and recipient are able to read the e-mail. The fact that no administrator, network operator, equipment manufacturer or hacker has access to the protected information at any time guarantees end-to-end data encryption.

The project “Confidential E-mail with BlackBerry” is currently in a phase of intense collaboration with the BlackBerry manufacturer RIM and IBM (Lotus Notes) to make integration easy for the end user. Bayer Business Services will be one of the first companies worldwide to establish this service with a Notes infrastructure as the central e-mail system.

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