As of June 1, 22% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted the Sender ID Framework (SIDF) e-mail authentication scheme, an increase of 1% over the previous month, according to Craig Spiezle, director, technology care and safety for Microsoft.
Also, more than 35% of e-mail overall is SIDF-compliant, and 85% of “top” e-commerce sites have adopted SIDF, said Spiezle during a presentation at the Inbox conference in San Jose last week. He did not define what he meant by “top” e-commerce site.
SIDF is one of four e-mail authentication schemes under which e-mail senders have been urged to identify the computers authorized to deliver mail on their behalf.
Among other things, the schemes are aimed at helping stop phishing, where thieves send e-mail that looks like, say, an official e-mail from EBay or Bank of America, but is really aimed at getting recipients to divulge information such as bank account numbers.
When one conference goer said he was dismayed over the low numbers, Spiezle said: “It’s been very sobering for all of us.” He added that reaching decision makers has been challenging.
Inbox providers have spent the last two years urging implementation of e-mail authentication so that they can also use the information to begin assigning reputation scores to e-mail senders and treat their messages according to how “spammy” their reputations are.
“The real promise of authentication is tying reputation to it,” said Spiezle.
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