Goodmail Systems Adds Anti-Phishing Capability to It's Email

September 24, 2004 - (HostReview.com) - Goodmail Systems, developers of Trusted-Class Email, a patented email stamping solution, announced today the addition of Anti-Fraud Domain Accreditation to its Trusted-Class Email platform, which prevents the use of misleading domains for phishing attacks.

"Phishing attacks that use 'spoofed' email to fraudulently obtain personal financial information are the fastest growing method of identity theft," noted Richard Gingras, CEO of Goodmail Systems. "Our Trusted-Class Email platform already addresses the need for deep accreditation, authentication, security and labeling of email messages.   We have added Anti-Fraud Domain Accreditation to ensure that recipients can confidently trust the legitimacy of messages from Trusted-Class Email senders."

According to research firm Gartner, 57 million U.S. adults have received phishing emails in the past year with more than 1.4 million suffering identify theft as a result of these fraudulent emails. Gartner estimates that phishing-related fraud has cost financial institutions $1.2 billion in direct losses in the past year. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reported a 40% increase in phishing attacks between June and July, 2004 and that 5% of consumers have fallen victim to such attacks.

Approaches to the phishing problem currently under consideration seek to authenticate that a message actually came from the domain represented in the message. This ensures that a message that looks like it was sent from citicorp.com was in fact sent from that domain. However, these domain authentication efforts will not stop messages that come from misleading domains such as citicorp.emailcustomer.com.

The Trusted-Class Email stamp is a patented technology that digitally signs messages by secure cryptographic means and is unique to the sender, recipient, and message. This ensures that stamps cannot be successfully copied, forged, stolen or spoofed. A valid stamped message is always from an authenticated and accredited Trusted-Class Email sender. As a result, recipients quickly learn that a stamped message is from a trusted source and is safe to open.

The Trusted-Class Email platform is a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach designed to address the critical problems that threaten email as a viable communications channel for legitimate businesses. Unlike anti-spam solutions, Goodmail's approach reliably identifies the "good" mail and offers Trusted-Class senders premium delivery of their permissioned email. Consumers receive visually distinct, stamped email that can be easily identified as legitimate and opened with confidence that the sender has been authenticated and can be held accountable for its email practices.

With the addition of Anti-Fraud Domain Accreditation, legitimate volume senders, especially those in financial services who are most at risk from phishing attacks, will have access to an email authentication solution that protects their customers from email fraud and identity theft.

Goodmail Systems has worked closely with mailbox providers and Internet service providers to develop Trusted-Class Email, a patented email stamping solution that seeks to restore trust in email. Trusted-Class Email allows accredited senders who agree to a high standard of email sending behavior to apply secure, digital stamps to their outgoing permissioned email.