About Office Message Encryption (OME)

Indiana University uses Office Message Encryption (OME) to provide protection of certain sensitive information when it leaves the IU network. IU (including the IU Health Sciences community) uses OME to encrypt email containing certain sensitive data, including identifiable medical, personal, and financial information; see About sensitive data at IU and About protected health information (PHI).

All outbound messages from IU mail servers to external recipients are scanned for certain potentially sensitive information; if the scan determines that the message is likely to contain sensitive data, it is encrypted. For instructions on accessing and reading the message, see How do I open a protected message?.

• Only outbound mail is affected. Mail that stays within the IU network (for example, from one Exchange user to another) is not affected.
• Only mail sent from Exchange is encrypted by OME. Mail sent from other IU systems is not encrypted by OME (for example, mail-relay.iu.edu).
• Mail scanning is automatic. All relevant messages are scanned, and will be encrypted if they are found to contain protected types of information. However, you may ensure that your message will be encrypted by including [Secure Message] (case insensitive, with square brackets) in your subject line; see Ensure that mail sent from your Exchange account to an outside address is encrypted.
• Attachments are encrypted. If an email message or any of its attachments are found to contain sensitive data, the message and all attachments are encrypted. However, not all file types can be scanned and therefore trigger automatic encryption; if you send any type of message or attachment containing sensitive data, you should force encryption by including [Secure Message] (case insensitive, with square brackets) in your subject line as above. Note that attachments over 100 MB cannot be encrypted; see Email message size limits.
• You can manage secure messages after they have been sent. See Revoke email encrypted by Advanced Message Encryption.

For more about OME, see Email encryption.

If you have problems reading an encrypted message, contact your campus Support Center.