San Francisco, April 1, 2008 – Setting the stage for a better understanding of sender authentication as a technology to combat junk email, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) has released a new white paper describing the practice as a foundation for protecting legitimate Internet mail. “Trust in Email Begins with Authentication” provides an overview of the technology by focusing on the standardized mechanisms in general use today, Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Sender IDentification Framework (SenderID), and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM).
“Authentication mechanisms can help distinguish legitimate email from spam. When used as part of a multi-faceted anti-abuse program, it is an important tool to help protect business brands from forgery and phishing attacks,” said Dave Crocker, the MAAWG senior advisor who edited the paper and principal at Brandenburg InternetWorking.
Email authentication mechanisms are used to validate the identity of an email’s sender, stifling would-be spammers who often forge the “From” field in an email message to avoid detection. The executive summary of the MAAWG paper provides an overview of how authentication can be used to protect email and is intended for general business managers. The main body provides more detail on SPF, SenderID, and DKIM mechanisms and is intended for technical readers familiar with basic Internet mail service.
“Trust in Email Begins with Authentication” is available at no cost at the MAAWG Web site, www.MAAWG.org.
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