Enhanced Microsoft 365 security powered by Zertificon’s email encryption and signing capabilities

binder pharma services gmbh orchestrates delicate supply chain, and IT services processes for pharmaceutical and healthcare players in Austria. The company manages and monitors the flow of medicines and services from healthcare providers to patients — involving pharmacies, hospitals, doctors, and everything in between.

Daily operations are no easy feat, making binder pharma services extremely meticulous about best IT practices and the highest system standards. Ultimately, success relies on secure, uninterrupted, and timely handling of sensitive health data, prescription orders, treatments, and invoices, to list just a few.

Need for digital mail signing + alternative to M365 message encryption

binder pharma services had big plans for its Microsoft 365 infrastructure. The company wanted to add digital email signing, which authenticates the sender as an extra assurance layer with supply chain communication partners. It also sought easy encryption outside Microsoft 365 to safely reach everyone, specifically lawyers, consultants, and authorities. In reality, though, achieving these objectives called for more flexibility than Microsoft 365 offers…

Add S/MIME support and device compatibility with M365

Microsoft 365 is a chosen business cloud service for many good reasons. Yet, it lacks much-needed enterprise features for email encryption and digital signatures. binder pharma services faced this precise situation with Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 solution: hassle managing S/MIME certificates for admins, no easy and user-friendly iOS functionality for employees that rely on mobile devices for efficiencies, and less than ideal encryption experience for recipients outside the Microsoft environment.

The pursuit for a fix thus began.

Requirements for a mail encryption solution 

Axel Binder, CEO
(Source: binder pharma services gmbh)

Along with his dedicated team, Mr. Axel Binder, CEO, and owner of binder pharma services, set sight on a solution with particular requirements.

No infrastructure change – added security features integration into Microsoft 365 without changing anything:

1. Flexible installation within a carefully predefined Azure cloud infrastructure or on-premise in one of the datacenters.
2. Independence from a service provider’s cloud: this desired freedom was to avoid two things, an extra point of failure related to service downtime and further compliance documentation.
3. Integration with established IT monitoring infrastructure software.

No employee involvement – definite usability conditions: Mr. Binder was adamant about user-friendliness. He wanted effortless and automated encryption on all devices, entirely in the background, with no employee key or certificate handling and no human error.

Gateway solution for fast and easy quest fulfillment

It did not take long for Mr. Binder to find and choose Z1 SecureMail Gateway, which includes Z1 SecureMail Messenger, a component for password-based encryption:

When I was looking online for a solution that integrates with my existing infrastructure, I eliminated so many competitors right from the beginning.

After a quick installation, binder pharma services easily upgraded to server-based email encryption in place of Microsoft 365’s S/MIME client-based encryption: the company conveniently removed the encryption burden from senders (and their workstations) and permanently assigned it to the Gateway instead. Encryption/decryption became central and automatic from the comfort of an admin interface.

The entire company was immediately able to sign emails and encrypt with everyone like clockwork, within and outside of the Microsoft 365 world. Geared with S/MIME, OpenPGP, and password-based encryption capabilities, recipient technology no longer mattered. We asked Mr. Binder about his team’s experience with Zertificon solutions…

Ease of use: Mr. Binder shares how nobody noticed any changes since Z1 solutions do not require training: “you can add another layer of security to emails, and users don’t have to do anything.”

Central compliance enforcement: the company is happy with the minimal configuration effort to centrally control and adjust encryption, allowing it to match specific needs and security policies: ”encryption works centrally and automatically in the gateway. I don’t have to worry about human error.”

Uninterrupted email delivery: Mr. Binder notes how the company can easily and directly send password-encrypted emails when recipients do not support S/MIME and Open PGP standards: “We have everything to encrypt, and signing emails is not a problem.”

Frictionless experience for all recipients: outside Microsoft 365, spontaneous keyless encryption with Z1 SecureMail Messenger solved all problems for the company. Mr. Binder is thrilled that “recipients don’t have to log into the Microsoft web interface to get authentication keys anymore.”

Encryption on the go: the company can now encrypt emails on all devices, in the outlook client, or any web portal. Mr. Binder also likes how he doesn’t have to worry about replacing broken office devices anymore since encryption and decryption for employee emails are set in the gateway.

Great email security experience with Z1 SecureMail Gateway 

After enough time went by for an objective evaluation, we reached out to Mr. Binder and inquired about anything he would like done differently. Rather, he shares his satisfaction with Z1 solutions as the company never experienced any downtime related to the gateway. He also appreciates how errors simply pop up in the alert log and how enterprise-wide encryption is not resource-intensive on servers.

The system runs silently in the background without any issues or headaches, which is nice. Zertificon made our life easier because we don’t have to think about email security in our daily life anymore.
– Axel Binder, CEO & owner of binder pharma services gmbh.