Message authentication using signatures

摘要

Systems and methods are provided for using digital signatures to help distinguish legitimate email from known or trusted organizations from unsolicited email or forged email. Digital signatures may be used in an email body, mail header, or embedded links. The signatures may be verified by a recipient or internet service provider and may be used in conjunction with spam filtering applications.

主权项

1. A method for using digital signatures to authenticate messages, the method comprising:
at a recipient, creating a list of domains, wherein the list of domains includes one or more domains from which all incoming messages from the one or more domains are to be checked for valid signatures; at a sender at a given domain within the list of domains, digitally signing a message to create a digital signature and sending the message together with the digital signature to the recipient; at the recipient, extracting from the message the given domain of the sender; at the recipient, comparing the extracted given domain of the sender the list of domains; and at the recipient and based on the given domain matching a domain in the list of domains, verifying the digital signature.