CISSP Practice Exam 2025 – Complete Prep Guide

S/MIME, which stands for Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, is a standard for public key encryption and signing of MIME data. A key characteristic of S/MIME is its ability to provide end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the intended recipient can read the message, as well as authenticating the origin of emails through digital signatures.

Furthermore, S/MIME is designed to handle different types of data, including attachments, allowing users to send securely encrypted files alongside the email content without compromising security.

The claim that S/MIME operates without user interaction is inaccurate because the use of S/MIME requires users to manage their own encryption keys and certificates, which includes the processes of signing and encrypting emails. Users must be engaged to initiate the security features, making this characteristic not applicable to S/MIME. Hence, the option stating that it operates without user interaction accurately reflects a non-characteristic of S/MIME.