CipherTrust Empowers End Users To Stop Fraudulent And Malicious E-Mail

Published 13th March 2006

Free e-mail toolbar provides graphical reputation indicators and one-click abuse reporting...

March 13, 2006 - As part of its ongoing initiative to renew trust in online communications, CipherTrust(r) today announced the TrustedSource Toolbar(tm) (available at http://research.ciphertrust.com/toolbar.php), the industry's first e-mail reputation toolbar. The toolbar is a free, easy-to-use software plug-in for e-mail clients that empowers end users to thwart spam, phishing and fraud and safeguard legitimate mail. Powered by the company's TrustedSource(tm) reputation engine, the toolbar brings unique monitoring, alerting and reporting capabilities to the desktop and provides end users with information to determine if a message is from a trusted, legitimate source.

While numerous toolbars are available for website phishing or other browser-based detection, the TrustedSource Toolbar is the only toolbar that focuses on the end user's first point of contact with a potentially fraudulent or malicious message and provides an immediate recommendation on an e-mail's legitimacy. The toolbar is available for download free of charge in the CipherTrust Research Portal(tm) (http://research.ciphertrust.com), which also launched today. The CipherTrust Research Portal is a new comprehensive messaging security community portal that includes spam, phishing and virus statistics, access to TrustedSource.org, SpamArchive.org, whitepapers, news and other industry resources.

Michael Osterman, founder and principal of Osterman Research, Inc, said: "The TrustedSource Toolbar is a very useful tool for end users to report spam and phishing attacks and to determine the reputation of e-mails sent from unknown or suspect sources. The real time nature of reputation reporting for every e-mail in an inbox gives users another source of information on which to base their decisions about the legitimacy of the e-mail they receive."


The TrustedSource Toolbar is easy to install and gives end users point-and-click usability and the power to influence sender reputations using innovative features:

- Graphical Reputation Indicator- leverages proprietary technology to classify the reputation of an incoming message in order to immediately identify any potential threats

- Spam and Phishing Reporting - offers an easy way for end users to flag and report spam and phishing attacks, influencing global sender reputations

- Flexible Support - supports multiple mail clients including Microsoft Outlook(r) and Lotus Notes(r), with Web-based mail support to follow

Dr. Paul Judge, chief technology officer at CipherTrust, said: "As today's anti-spam technologies have improved, the threats have adapted to become more malicious and fraudulent. Even with 99 percent catch rates, still one in every 100 unwanted messages will make it to the user's desktop, highlighting an increasing need to provide additional information about the reputation of the sender and the message before the user interacts with the message. We must work together as a community to rebuild trust in the e-mail system. The TrustedSource Toolbar enables us to donate our reputation intelligence to help stop malicious and fraudulent activity so that the trust may be regained."

TrustedSource - Global Detection, Local Protection The TrustedSource Toolbar leverages data received from CipherTrust's TrustedSource reputation engine. Like a virtual credit agency, TrustedSource assigns a reputation score to each message and further classifies senders based on an in-depth analysis of each sender. CipherTrust has the largest enterprise install base of any other messaging security appliance vendor, providing a unique view into the overall messaging security ecosystem.


CipherTrust Research - Sharing Technology and Innovation The newly launched CipherTrust Research Portal is designed to support the global security research community for the entire messaging spectrum. The CipherTrust Research Portal is home to numerous industry resources including TrustedSource.org and SpamArchive.org - two of CipherTrust Research's free tools to stop spam, fraud and phishing. The Research Portal also provides access to research updates, events and statistics. CipherTrust Research is focused on improving the world's messaging security posture by contributing to the advancement of messaging security technologies, promoting awareness and education and working with government and law enforcement agencies around the world.





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