Sendmail Helps Restore Internet Trust by Guiding the DKIM Specification Closer to Standardization.As Fraudulent Messaging, Phishing and Information Theft Rise, Email Authentication See e-mail authentication. Standards Are Needed More Than Ever EMERYVILLE, Calif. -- Sendmail, the leading provider of policy-centric solutions for securing and authenticating business communications, today announced that a key milestone towards standardization of email authentication technology was made by Sendmail Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Eric Allman Eric Paul Allman (born 1955) is a computer programmer who developed sendmail and its precursor delivermail in the late 1970s and early 1980s at UC Berkeley. Education and training . Working on behalf of a cross-industry group, Allman submitted the draft specification for Domain Keys Authenticated Mail (DKIM See DomainKeys. ) for assessment by the Internet Engineering Task Force (c/o Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), Reston, VA, www.ietf.org) Founded in 1986, the IETF is a non-membership, open, voluntary standards organization dedicated to identifying problems and opportunities in IP data networks and proposing technical solutions to the . After years of development, refinement and evaluation, the specification for DKIM - for verifying both the domain of each email sender and the integrity of the message - is ready for review and could be accepted as a proposed standard in a matter of weeks. Allman, who co-authored the specification, was instrumental in bringing Yahoo! and Cisco initially together to develop DKIM, and he has helped guide it through the review and refinement process. As the leader in trusted messaging, Sendmail features integrated DKIM support within its mail processing platform, providing 360 degree management and security of all business communications. In addition, Sendmail is the only company to support all of the leading authentication mechanisms (DKIM, DK, SPF (1) (Stateful Packet Firewall) See stateful inspection. (2) (Sender Policy Framework) An e-mail authentication system that verifies that the message came from an authorized mail server. , SIDF (System Independent Data Format) An international standard format for storing data along with its file system. When conceived by the SIDF Association in 1993, its primary purpose was to allow backup tapes created by one vendor to be readable by another vendor's ) in its Sentrion MG (mail gateway) hard or soft appliance. "The submission of the DKIM draft is a critical step in its adoption as an Internet standard An Internet standard is a specification for an innovative internetworking technology or methodology, which the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) ratified as an open standard after the innovation underwent peer review. , which will provide an important resource that will enable enterprises to neutralize cyber-crime," said Allman, the author of sendmail, the world's first Internet mail See Internet e-mail service. program. "DKIM has the potential to bring trust and a greater sense of order to the Internet, reduce the unwanted clutter that burdens both individuals and networks and eliminate opportunities for spammers and phishers to use fraudulent messages to attack individuals and steal their personal information." Studies show that more than 80 percent of a company's incoming messages are unwanted and pose a threat, and that number is expected to increase. DKIM provides the means to virtually eliminate fraudulent email by providing sender authentication See e-mail authentication and Sender ID. , verification and traceability to determine if a message is legitimate or forged. DKIM adds a unique, cryptographic signature to each outbound email. The receiving mail server can then validate the signature through the Internet's domain name system (DNS (Domain Name System) A system for converting host names and domain names into IP addresses on the Internet or on local networks that use the TCP/IP protocol. For example, when a Web site address is given to the DNS either by typing a URL in a browser or behind the ). Email with signatures that can't be validated are automatically rejected. Eric Allman will discuss DKIM during a one-hour Ferris Research Webinar entitled "Sender Authentication" today Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 11:30 a.m. EST EST electroshock therapy. EST abbr. electroshock therapy . To participate in the Webinar, please visit: http://www.sendmail.com/ferris. Important questions addressed by this Webinar will include: * What is sender authentication? * What are the available sender authentication methods? * Why should email senders and recipients care about it? About Sendmail, Inc. Sendmail is the leading provider of policy-centric solutions for securing and authenticating business communications. Based on the world's first Internet Mail server, developed 25 years ago by Sendmail founder Eric Allman, only Sendmail provides enterprises directory-driven, policy-based message processing to address both internal and external threats in a single, integrated platform. Large enterprises across 33 countries, including the majority of the Fortune 1000, rely on Sendmail to protect sensitive data and intellectual property, eliminate unwanted messages and effectively manage their mail stream to maintain brand and shareholder value, and comply with security and regulatory policies. Sendmail is headquartered in Emeryville, CA, with offices and distributors in Europe, Asia and North America. For more information visit www.sendmail.com or call 1-87-SENDMAIL. [c] Sendmail, Inc. 2007. All rights reserved. Sendmail is a registered trademark of Sendmail, Inc. Yahoo! Inc., and Cisco are trademarks or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc. respectively. |
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