Recently there has been a number of upgrades by some of the major players online. Microsoft and Google (to name a couple) have updated their requirements and as a result, your website email accounts may be affected.
The main issue is that, up until the upgrades, sending and receiving emails was relatively simple (that isn’t to say it isn’t now but the security requirements are being ramped up noticeably) Sending emails without what is called authentication is becoming increasingly difficult and as a website owner this will start to impact on how you communicate via email.
The second issue that raises it’s head with authentication is that the major players now require a SSL Certificate. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and you obtain a SSL digital certificate to confirm and verify who you are out there in the ether
Until recently, the POP (incoming) and SMTP (outgoing) email servers on your website were able to use self signed SSL certificates. This meant you could create a certificate and it was accepted that you were who you said you were. Now the players like Microsoft and Google, in the face of continued scrutiny from users, are requiring that you supply a certificate from a Certificate Authority. This adds another cost to you and your business but it does give your users the comfort that their data and communications with you are safer.
Luckily, there is a company who provides a free SSL certificate for your website. StartSSL will quickly and easily provide you with a SSL certificate and in your Control Panel you will see the SSL/TLS Manager and it is in here that you can install the certificate you received from StartSSL.
You can check that it is all installed correctly by going to http://www.digicert.com/help/ and verifying that the certificate is installed correctly
This will enable you to send and receive emails without any of those pesky security pop ups telling you that you aren’t secure. Remember to add your site to your trusted sites in internet options security tab along with adding the certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities in the content tab.
If you have any questions about this, open a ticket at our support page or send an email to support@hostmeplus.com