RE: Email Encryption Between Servers

From: dave (dave@netmedic.net)
Date: 04/05/03

  • Next message: Andreas Happe: "Re: Iptables Clues and Advices." 
    From: "dave" <dave@netmedic.net>
To: "'Robinson, Sonja'" <SRobinson@HIPUSA.com>, <security-basics@securityfocus.com>, <white-tiger@rocketmail.com>, <alc@2wh.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 20:04:01 -0500

    A simply solution would be to utilize a system like Securit-e-Doc.

    http://www.securit-e-doc.com/

    http://www.securit-e-doc.com/pdf/securit_e_doc_tm_white_paper.pdf

    It allows you to have a secure File and Messaging system.

    Instead of you sending out these e-mails or files/documents, you simply post
    them on the server and an e-mail alert goes out to the recipients, they
    login and read the message or download the files.

    It is all done through SSL and the files/messages are encrypted using
    standard methods (i.e. Blowfish etc...) both during transport and while
    stored on the server.

    The system is FIPS-140 compliant and GSA approved so it will meet all the
    HIPAA requirements.
    http://www.securit-e-doc.com/pdf/securit-e-doc_press_release_110102.pdf

    Just my $.02

     
    _____________________
    Dave Kleiman
    dave@netmedic.net
    www.netmedic.net

     

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Robinson, Sonja [mailto:SRobinson@HIPUSA.com]
    Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 12:37
    To: security-basics@securityfocus.com
    Subject: RE: Email Encryption Between Servers

    There are some interesting ideas and solutions depending upon your specific
    situation. I really like some of the ideas that are being presented. Each
    one has pros and cons and needs to be evaluated based on your environment
    and your need. VPN is all well and good for your major business partners
    providing you take certain precautions and mitigate risks and admin
    overhead. Each environment and company is different but I don't think I
    would want too many VPN connections. Overhead could become cumbersome
    depending of course on a number of factors. Remember - each company is
    different and there are risks associated with each solution. Also, it's not
    just confidentiality you have to worry about, there's integrity and
    authentication you have to think about too. So, if the e-mail is decrypted
    at the other gateway, how can you ensure that no one else has read it and
    that only the intended recipient has received it? Also, can I send a secure
    e-mail to ANYONE or just selected people?

    Here are some scenarios to think about when you are evaluating your
    solutions.

    Scenario 1: You are a healthcare company and you need to send PHI,in an
    e-mail for arguments sake, to a business company (hospital in this case).
    How would you do it? VPN connection? Secure E-mail, PGP, secure web server,
    secure compatible hardware? What kind of overhead and support for them and
    us will I need? Who is exchanging keys? Is everything encrypted? Only
    stuff with PHI?

    Scenario 2: Same as 1 but now you are just transferring a list of all your
    members and their coverage? VPN? Dial up? Secure Ftp? Secure web server?
    Is there a difference for e-mail versus non-e-mail? What about e-mail with
    a file attached that has a client list?

    Scenario 3: You are a healthcare company and you need to send PHI to a
    number of your members/patients. They don't have VPN and don't have the
    slightest clue how to set one up nor would most want to. How do send them
    encrypted e-mail? PGP? Perhaps. But who is going to support PGP for those
    people. Who is going to buy it for them and/or install it? Remember a lot
    of people who need to receive these e-mails are not technically savvy and
    key exchange between 100's, 1000's and 1,000,000's of users can be a
    monumental task. Think about e-mailing them their Claims Statements and the
    potential # of users you may have to deal with. Great ROI can be achieved
    but it has to be secure. Your members may only have to deal with 2 or 3
    entities who want to send them secure e-mail.

    Sceanrio 4: Same as above but now you are contacting your member doctors.
    Are the doctors going to have separate keys for each provider, doctor,
    hospital, pharmacy, insurance company they deal with? Are you going to
    require them to install software on their PC's? Who will install and
    support this? Are you going to show their admin/nurses how to manage the
    keys? What if they forget their passphrase? Will I, as the provider, be
    able to manager all of THEIR keys myself since potentially I may have well
    over a million keys to deal with? Will my users be able to or will I have
    to train them on multiple packages myself since they will be receiving
    encrypted e-mail from external entitites as well?

    Scenario 5: I'm a doctor. I provide healthcare to my patients. Here is my
    dilemma: I deal with 5 insurance companies all with different solutions. I
    deal with hospitals, pharmcies ,etc who also have different solutions. VPN,
    desktop e-mail encryption, enterprise e-mail encryption. How am I going to
    manage key exchange (if their solution requires it), staff training,
    software installations, etc.? Can they really impose their solution on me
    and my business processes? My staff is not trained for this type of thing.
    What is encryption and keys? Who do I call to get a key? Where is it
    stored? What if I can't get it to work? Who will support me? What if I
    lose the key? Do I have to a have a key for each of my employees?

    I'm not trying to endorse any solution, any product or any vendor, just
    trying to get a dialog going on solutions for other than major business
    partners. These are some of the things my company has thought about during
    our solutions. Multiple solutions may also be necessary. These are issues
    that we all need to think about.

    DISCLAIMER: This is not necessarily the opinion of my company, blah blah
    blah

    Sonja Robinson, CISA
    Network Security Analyst
    HIP Health Plans
    Office: 212-806-4125
    Pager: 8884238615

    in the ports there is pgpsendmail. Havn't tried it yet,
    but what that will do for you is automagicly pgp encrypt
    and decrypt email for anyone that you have there public key
    in your keyring.
    that way the users do not have to worry about it.

    also. look into sendmail's TLS
    that might help also.

    I was looking at pgpsendmail for the same reason, HIPAA
    but didn't want to have to retrain the whole staff.

    Please let me know what you find that works for you.

     
    > We are attempting to set up secure e-mail with our
    > partner companies to
    > comply with the upcoming HIPAA requirements. I would
    > like to find a way to
    > encrypt all e-mail going between our mail server and our partners. We
    > are using Exchange. Some of our partners are also using
    > Exchange and some are
    > using other SMTP servers.
    >
    > Is there a way to automatically force all e-mail between
    > our two e-mail
    > servers (either Exchange to Exchange or Exchange to SMTP)
    > to be encrypted
    > then decrypted on arrival with no end user intervention?
    > If there are,
    > what affect, if any will these encryption methods have on
    > our overall
    > network security.
    >

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