Understanding How Exchange 2003 Supports Message Security

Understanding Message Security discussed the core services of Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME)-based message security, which are digital signing and message encryption. In addition, Understanding Message Security discussed how digital certificates and public key infrastructure (PKI) make S/MIME possible and how these technologies support each other. From this discussion of S/MIME, it is clear that there are many components to S/MIME. S/MIME is not a single product or technology. Rather, a fully functioning S/MIME implementation includes several different components that span multiple technologies.

With a general understanding of S/MIME, the next step is to apply this understanding to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003. Because an S/MIME system is made up of several components and technologies, it is important to understand all components and how they fit together. Then, with an understanding of the total system, each specific component can be discussed in detail.

This section shows all the components that make up an Exchange Server 2003-based message security system and how these components provide the specific services associated with S/MIME. At the end of this section, you should understand what these specific components are and how they provide message security services. With the information in this section, you can move on to the following sections, which discuss each part of the system in detail.