Frequently Asked Questions

General

What's Kryptiva's Architecture?
The Kryptiva Architecture is comprised of three main components: The Kryptiva Packaging Plugin, The Kryptiva Packaging Server and The Kryptiva Online Services. These components integrate seamlessly in your existing infrastructure and provide you with capabilities for email tracking, encryption and authentication. For more information on the Kryptiva Architecture, please refer to the Architecture Overview in the Technology section.

What's the Kryptiva Platform?
The Kryptiva Platform is one particular edition of the Kryptiva Architecture where the Kryptiva Packaging Server is provided as a Platform Edition, therefore allowing you to freely provide encryption and authentication services to your entire enterprise. For more information on the Platform Edition of the Kryptiva Packaging Server, please click here.

What about recipients?
There are basically two types of recipients: recipients belonging to organizations that have deployed the Kryptiva Platform and recipients that don't belong to such an organization. In the former case, recipients have access to the Kryptiva functionality transparently through the plugin installed for them by their organization within their existing email client application. In the later case, those recipients are further divided into two groups: those who can freely install software on their systems and those that can't or don't have a plugin available to them. For those who can install software on their systems, they may download the Kryptiva Packaging Plugin that is freely available in the downloads section. For those that can't, they may use the Kryptiva Boomerang service in order to read their email. For more information on the Boomerang service, click here.

Usage

I'm a user, where do I start?
Please visit the Get Started! section.

Do I need Kryptiva's plugin to read Kryptiva-packaged emails?
No. If the email you received is signed, then its contents will still be visible, although a few tags which you may not be familiar with will appear in the content. If the content is encrypted, however, you will need to use the Boomerang service in order to get access to it. To use this service, simply forward the Kryptiva-packaged email you have received to the Boomerang address provided to you by the sender. You will then receive a follow-up email containing a link to a password-protected web page. By clicking on this link and entering your password, you will get access to the decrypted email.

Integration and Administration

I'm a system administrator, where do I start?
Please visit the Get Started! section.

How do I activate my KPS?
The KPS Activation Process is detailed here.

Why use a plugin?
The Technology Rationale section explains why the use of a plugin is the only method to truly rely on incoming email, whether it be encrypted or not. Indeed, any product which does not require the recipient to rely on a trusted software to authenticate an email's origin prior to conducting any other operation actually increases the security risks associated with email delivery by inducing users into a false sense of security. This includes products that redirect recipients to external websites for "secure" email delivery and products that involve recipients having to open auto-executable "secure" attachments. Our Boomerang service was specifically designed to overcome the inherent lack of trust involved in ad-hoc communications. By forcing recipients to explicitly request links to secure content, the Boomerang technology greatly reduces the ability of malicious third parties from taking advantage of your secure interactions with your recipients. Despite making the Boomerang service available, we strongly believe that all users should install our plugin in order to reliably authenticate the emails they receive.

Security and Cryptography

Do the emails ever transit on Kryptiva's servers?
No. No member emails ever transit on our online servers. The only case where our online servers are led to directly process email content is in the case of a non-member using a one-time use reply token provided by a member sender for allowing the recipient to reply securely. And in that specific case, Kryptiva never stores the email except in RAM during its processing.

What is the crypto behind this?
The full detail of the cryptographic protocol designed and patented by Kryptiva is available in the Technology section.

Provisioning

How much does Kryptiva's Platform product cost?
The Kryptiva Packaging Server Platform Edition, which is the cornerstone of all Kryptiva deployments, is available free of charge for U.S.- and Canadian-based organizations. For more information, please click here.

Is the Platform really free? What's the catch?
Yes it's free and No, there's no catch. Our business model is based on our Collaboration Suite.