Knowledge Base

Personal eMail Certificates

UNDER RECONSTRUCTION - This article is out of date and is being reconstructed

Most notable issues are the fact that the FREE certificates are not available anymore. We are working on a way to get round this. The only FREE ones left do not provide enough security to be mentioned. You can still purchase a certificate

What is an eMail certificate and what is it used for

Personal eMail certificates are special security certificates that allow you to send emails that are signed or encrypted (S/MIME). Signed emails cannot be altered in transit without breaking the seal. When the email reaches the otherside the user will be notified if the seal is broken and the email has been tampered with. There is no know way to circumvent this technology, unless you have lost control of your keys. (more about that in a bit)

You can also encrypt emails with an eMail certificate. This requires you to have the other persons Public Key which you can get from them from a signed email that they have sent you.

To sign an email is realy easy. What ever email program you use there will be a button or a tick box in the settings for that email. Tick the box or push the button and when the email is sent it will be signed. The same is for encrypting an email and it is probably located next to the sign button or tick box.

Once you have the other persons public key and you have sent them your public key then you can encrypt the email and only they can decrypt it.

The important bit is to get yourself an eMail certificate. For personal use they are still free, although they seem to be dissapearing fast. For business, especially large businesses you can purchase a certificate here.

FREE for personal use eMail Certificate

For a FREE for personal use go here. Fill out the form completely, including:

• First name
• Surname
• eMail address
• Country
• Leave the Key size (bits) as "High Grade"
• Leave or remove the tick for the newsletter from Comodo as required
• Tick the "I Accept..." box
• Type a Revokation Password and make a note of it somewhere (This is only used to revoke your certificate which renders it useless)
• Click Next

You should now backup your private key because if you lose access to this you cannot use your certificate and no-one can help you to retrieve it once it is gone. If your private key is compromised you should immediately revoke the certificate using the password provided during setup above.

NB:

• Make sure you use the Firefox web browser as other browsers will not always work (Chrome and Edge especially do not work). Fill in the form above and click submit. You will then receive an email when your certificate is ready with a link in it. Open this link on the same computer in the same browser to download your certificate. This is because your private key is stored in the browser that you made the request from and can only be opend with that key. Once opned you will need to export it and then import it in to your mail client (see below).