Compatibility Between Different Mobile Encryption Clients and Encryption Formats

Products

• Desktop Email Encryption
• Encryption Management Server
• Mobile Encryption for iOS

Issue/Introduction

Some Symantec Encryption clients do not support all the available encryption formats. The clients covered in this article are:

• Symantec Mobile Encryption 2.0.2.7 for iOS
• PGP Support Package for BlackBerry
• Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3 MP3

Cause

The iOS Mail Encryptor cannot encrypt using the PGP/MIME encoding format.  The BlackBerry client cannot encrypt or decrypt the PGP-EML encoding format.

 

Resolution

The compatibility matrix below shows that if you are using both the Symantec Mobile Encryptor for iOS app and the PGP Support Package for BlackBerry then the PGP Partitioned Format is currently the only encryption format that is compatible between the two clients.

Compatibility Matrix	BlackBerry	iOS	Desktop Client	Notes
PGP Partitioned Encrypt	Y	Y	Y
PGP Partitioned Decrypt	Y	Y	Y	BlackBerry requires S/MIME enabled on BES. The Mail Encryptor user will have to copy the encrypted text to the clipboard and decrypt using the Mail Encryptor. The Subject and Recipients will be lost. The BlackBerry cannot open attachments encoded with PGP Partitioned encoding format.
PGP/MIME Encrypt	Y	N	Y	The Mail Encryptor app will fall back to use PGP Partitioned format.
PGP/MIME Decrypt	Y	Y	Y	The Subject and Recipients will be lost when the iOS Mail Encryptor user decrypts and replies.
PGP-EML Encrypt	N	Y	Y	Symantec Encryption Management Server 3.3 and/or Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3 and above.
PGP-EML Decrypt	N	Y	Y	Symantec Encryption Management Server 3.3 and/or Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3 and above.

 

 

 

Applies To

Mobile Encryption for iOS is supported by Symantec Encryption Management Server version 3.3 or above. The app is named "Mail Encryptor" on iOS.