Easily Apply Protective Markings to Electronic Mail

The Australian Government Protective Security Manual 2005 (PSM) mandates the Email Protective Marking Standard for all Australian government agencies. This policy formalizes the use of email classification by mandating that all government departments introduce email protective marking.

Once information has been identified as requiring a security classification and has been categorised as being either national security or non-national security information, a protective marking must be assigned to the information.  The marking indicates:

  1. that the information has been security classified
  2. whether it is national security or non-national security information
  3. what level of protective procedures must be provided during the use, storage, transmission, transfer and disposal of the information (eg secure sockets layer (SSL), encryption or a secure network which only transmits national security information).

A protective marking indicates to all users the level of protection the information needs.  The system therefore provides an assurance that information of broadly equivalent worth or value is given an appropriate and consistent level of protection.
The policy specifies that all agency-originated email that contain security-classified information must include a protective marking that identifies the maximum classification and set of caveats for the information. In addition, agencies must ensure that all agency-originated email that do not contain any classified information are marked with an appropriate protective marking such as UNCLASSIFIED or PERSONAL.

Titus Labs Message Classification for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA) support the requirements of the standard. This easy to use solution allows Australian government agencies to comply with these policies and also enables agencies to force their users to apply these markings before sending any electronic mail. Titus Labs Message Classification enables Australian government agencies to quickly configure or modify the classification markings for all of their users via Titus Labs' centralized administration tools that work with Microsoft Active Directory.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) guidelines and Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) policies formalizing the use of BlackBerrys in government require compliance with the email protective marking standard. Australian government customers can now deploy BlackBerry classification and the Titus Labs software on the desktop with the confidence that the platforms will interoperate seamlessly. By allowing users to classify e-mails, customers are able to introduce BlackBerry devices while protecting information in compliance with AGIMO rules, the Attorney-General's Protective Security Manual regulations, and DSD's ACSI33.


Titus Labs Supports the Email Protective Marking Standard

Titus Labs supports the Australian Email Protective Marking Standard in both Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft OWA clients including “Subject Field Marking” where the protective marking is placed at the end of the message's subject field. 

  1. Subject Line Markings -  Message Classification will automatically format the subject line marking to the Australian standard, e.g. [SEC=IN-CONFIDENCE, CAVEAT=AUSTEO]
  2. Internet Message Header Extension - Messages are generated with the protective marking in a custom Internet Message Header Extension "X-Protective-Marking". This is placed in the required format X-Protective-Marking: [VER=2005.6, NS=gov.au, SEC=xxx, CAVEAT=yyy]

Support for the Internet Message Header Extension is two-way support.  Message Classification can both send messages with the correct x-protective-marking and receive and interpret incoming messages with an x-protective marking. This includes the ability to interpret x-protective markings that may have been applied by another third party messaging solution.

Benefits

  • Easily apply classification and caveat markings to electronic mail
  • Easily enforce all users to apply these markings before an email can be sent
  • Address need for greater security mandated by Australian Government
  • Provide metadata that will allow easier sort / searching in inboxes and archived email
  • Control the flow of proprietary information and IP in and out of the organization
  • Easily deploy and manage the software

Australian Customers

Titus Labs’ Australian customer base consists of over 30 federal government departments, including:

  • Australian Department of Defence
  • Australian Taxation Office
  • Department of Environment and Heritage
  • Department of Finance and Administration
  • Department of Transport and Regional Services
  • Department of Education, Science and Training
  • Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

These Australian organizations have all selected Titus Labs software in order to meet government information and communications security requirements.

EPMS Solutions Include:

  • Message Classification: Classifies, labels, and protectively marks email in Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and mobile devices.
  • Document Classification: Classifies, labels, and protectively marks documents in Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
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