The Cyber Security Upholder – Email Security Committee
How Email Security Committee implementation of email security measures across the world.
Every advancement in technology comes with a loophole that is used by adversaries for the propagation of their malicious interests and their material gains. Emails are the epitome of such a wonder of technology which has, on the one hand, simplified the process of communication and on the other made people vulnerable to phishing attacks and other cyber threats.
They are the vectors or how attackers deliver their malicious packets and contents to their targets. It has become very challenging to thwart these scammers who are perennially looking out for increasingly advanced means to rob innocent and unsuspecting email users of their personal and financial details.
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Hence it is imperative that anti-phishing measures are adopted to ensure that email users receive protection from these cybercriminals. The Email Security Committee endeavors to promote the implementation of email security measures across the world. The achievement of setting up standards and authentication best practices for the most efficient and reliable email application is remarkable. The services will be suitable for all types of email senders and receivers, including brands, Internet Service Providers, enterprises, government agencies, and individuals. The Email Security Committee aims to achieve its goals of ensuring email security for all by increasing the integrity and trust of legitimate email, while also focusing on reducing spear phishing, spam, and social engineered email exploits.
What Is The Email Security Committee?
Up till 1990, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was the regulating authority for setting the standards for safe use of the internet. Around that time, many were of the view that the existing support for the activities of the task force, which came primarily from the US Government agencies like NASA, ARPA, DOE, and NSF, would invariably diminish in the future or that the growing requirements would soon outgrow the available resources from these support sources.
As a result, members proposed to form a society as a fundraising and support platform; following the proposal; the Internet Society came into being in 1992. The Internet Society formed different committees under it to function as the guardians of safe internet use. One of these committees, the Email Security Committee is an outcome of the more excellent vision of securing the internet and building trust among users set by the Internet Society.
Email today is widely and universally used by people as a primary mode of online communication in almost all fields such as education, corporate life, government sector, etc. The user-friendly nature of email has not only facilitated uninterrupted work for professionals but has also bestowed upon criminals a sort of extraordinary power to help them give shape to all their scams and frauds. Today, emails are vulnerable like never before to spam, phishing, identity theft attacks, attempts to spread malware, and sophisticated attacks which are referred to as Advanced Persistent Threats.
The Email Security Committee aims to minimize, if not eliminate, this very issue that continually keeps the credentials of users exposed to the prying eyes of the cannibals of the cyber world – the attackers and cybercriminals.
How Does The Email Security Committee Function?
Online Trust Alliance (OTA)
The Email Security Committee makes use of the Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance (OTA) which helps to identify and promote the best security and privacy methods that establish the strong confidence of consumers on the Internet. Many leaders from the public and private sector, vendors, researchers, and policymakers contribute to and adopt the Online Trust Alliance’s guidelines and the path to secure online transactions and ensure the safety of safer the data of users.
The Online Trust Alliance aims to educate and empower stakeholders on Internet issues that influence the trust of users and uphold the brand reputation via independent research and benchmark reporting. To add to this, they adopt Drive multi-stakeholder initiatives which ensure the development and advancement in security and privacy measures to better safeguard users’ interests.
The Online Trust Alliance formulates various working groups and committees to render meaningful learning experiences, develop industry leadership, and empower its users to be able to manage their security requirements in the future.
Email Authentication
The Email Security Committee makes use of email authentication, which helps reduce email threats. It aims to do so by providing means for email senders to own up and take responsibility for the emails they send and also for the receivers to locate, trace, and judge whether the email and its senders are genuine or they are only from some fraudsters giving shape to their malicious intents.
Email authentication, security, and email-related best practices form the basis of the Email Security Committee’s efforts in securing email for users. The initiatives also include the promotion of email integrity and laying down standards for counteracting frauds through email and phishing.
The combined use of email authentication standards – Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) forms one of the primary mechanisms of the Email Security Committee and that of the annual Online Trust Audit.
Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)
Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance is an emerging standard for reducing the threat of deceptive emails. DMARC functions by creating a feedback loop between emails senders and receivers, thereby killing the scope for hackers and phishers to impersonate either party involved in the process of communication via emails. DMARC aims to establish greater confidence in the reliability of the email channel among users by enhancing brand protection, monitoring the authentication infrastructure via its feedback loop, and keeping a check on the misuse of their platform by any adversary.
How Does The Email Security Committee Uphold Cyber Security?
The formation of the Email Security committee follows a spate of cyber-security breaches (which involved personal information, user credentials, financial data or various organizations, etc.) and incidents over the past few years.
The Committee adopts the OTA (Online Trust Alliance) to check the spread and application email authentication among its users to facilitate the creation of un-spoofable email channels, free from the fraudulent emails sent by adversaries. This achievement helps them win the trust of email users as well as uphold cybersecurity, which is but the most crucial target in recent times. The OTA makes use of three email authentication standards – Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) to ensure email security. The formation of the Email Security committee is going to be a significant milestone in securing the internet, individuals, and organizations from ever-growing phishing attacks.