Entrepreneur & Email Encryption: How is Office 365 (vs Zixmail & Neocertified)?

[Comp625]

I am a one-person startup and have been analyzing various secure email encryption services since it is a critical component of my communication strategy (i.e. needing to send and receive HIPAA/HITECH/PHI-sensitive information to and from clients).

My Needs:

1. I need it to have MS Outlook (and MS Exchange) integration via an Add-On that includes a "Send Secure Email" button.
2. I need a web portal so that clients can initiate secure emails to me. The web portal can be hosted by the chosen vendor. For example, client goes to my website, clicks on "Send a Secured (PHI) Email" and it hyperlinks them to the vendor's portal with a Username/Password/Registration box.

My Final Four Vendors
I have boiled down my selection to four vendors: Zixmail, Neocertified, Barracuda and MS Office 365 (which I am leaning towards).

• Zixmail is synonymous with email encryption, has full Outlook integration, and their "Zix Message Center." However, there is a 400 user minimum and is extremely pricey. Folks around the internet say that Zixmail's interface is tough to use with nearly non-existent tech support.
  
• Neocertified is not quite as well-known as Zixmail, but they seem to offer everything I need including their "WebConnect" portal. They, too, have a user minimum (according to various feedback I found online) but while exact costs are not known, they aren't quite as pricey as Zixmail.
  
• Barracuda was another consideration but I couldn't locate any information about a web portal for emails.
  
• Office 365 has the best "brand-name" backing (Microsoft) that is recognizable to even the average lay person. Also, they seem to offer the cleanest layout and price seems transparent ($2/month). However, I think this web portal is separate from encryption through Outlook/Exchange -- pricing about this component is unknown to me.

What are your thoughts? Any help is most appreciated!

 

[joblo37pam]

I resell Office 365, but have yet to use the encryption features. I do have a couple customers on Barracuda, though, and the encryption works well and is pretty painless, plus you get another layer of spam protection.

Regardless of which service you use, I would caution against relying on an end user to click a button to encrypt a message. If it's sensitive information, the service should be scanning and encrypting it automatically based on rules. It's inevitable that a user would forget to click the button and leave you vulnerable.

 

[MysticRyuujin]

You could always just run your own Exchange server with OWA (HTTPS) and ensure that the exchange server has no external senders. Basically ensuring that there is no need for transportation encryption.

Or host a website with a secure form. It doesn't sound like you actually want "email" as your requirements are that it only go to you and would require a user to log into a site anyway.

You have to remember that the transportation of an email from one server to the other is not guaranteed to be encrypted if the email servers don't both support it and negotiate it. Or if the message itself is encrypted before transmission, but that requires the ability to decrypt it down the line (like PGP)

 

[Sage2k]

All I can say is do not use office365 if you use ipv6. We have constant issues with 5000 users and MS still refuses to acknowledge it

 

[Tee]

All I can say is do not use office365 if you use ipv6. We have constant issues with 5000 users and MS still refuses to acknowledge it

Odd.... My IPV6 networks work fine with Office 365.

Office 365 is simple and easy, it also has great complacency controls built in to it to block credit card, socials, and some other data from leaving the network unless encrypted or relayed through so other means. (You do have to set this up to be functional)

Barracuda is good, you can also try cisco, or even voltage.com which is a product many banks such as Wells Fargo use, it's cheap though. (<---- For Encryption)

Any which way I would use Office 365 because just about anything integrates with it if done right. Just make sure to use federation services if you are going to integrate anything in to it, it should make your life easier in the long run.