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Email Sender Authentication and Spam Prevention Efficacy Study

New technology for identifying the sender of e-mail messages has not been widely adopted despite backing from software giant Microsoft Corp. and may not be effective at stopping unsolicited commercial e-mail, otherwise known as spam, according to a survey by e-mail security company CipherTrust Inc. . . .. A check of approximately two million e-mail messages sent to CipherTrust customers between May and July showed that only about 5 percent of all incoming messages came from domains that published a valid sender authentication record using Sender Policy Framework (SPF) or a newer standard, backed by Microsoft, called Sender ID. Within that 5 percent, slightly more is spam than legitimate e-mail, said Paul Judge, chief technology officer at the Atlanta company. Sender ID is a technology standard that closes loopholes in the current system for sending and receiving e-mail that allow senders -- including spammers -- to fake, or "spoof," a message's origin. Organizations publish a list of their approved e-mail servers in the DNS (domain name system). That record, referred to as the sender policy framework (SPF) record, is then used to verify the sender of e-mail messages sent to other Internet domains using Sender ID. The link for this article located at Paul Roberts, IDG News Service is no longer available. . Recent evaluations indicate that the latest email validation methods are not widely adopted and prove insufficient in combating unsolicited messages, even with substantial support.. Email Authentication, Spam Prevention, Sender ID, DNS Security. . LinuxSecurity.com Team

Aug 31, 2004 • LinuxSecurity.com Team Cryptography