Spammers like Sender ID component

NOTE This story has been updated to correct some information in the original story. Ed.

ALTHOUGH Microsoft's anti-spam sender-ID is disliked by Open Sourcers, a key component of it Sender Policy Framework is getting wide spread adoption by spammers.

According to E-mail security outfit MX Logic, spammers are taking to sender-id faster than an IT journalist to whisky. The science is pretty easy. Under the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), companies publish a list of authorised E-mail servers for the domains they control. This is used by those receiving E-mail to make sure the purported server of origin matches the one listed in the message header.

According to MX Logic spammers are trying to make their messages appear more legitimate by adopting an emerging email authentication technology in the hope that their unsolicited email messages will be viewed as more legitimate because the messages have a SPF email authentication record associated with them.

In a sample of more than 400,000 unique spam email messages that passed through the MX Logic Threat Center between from August 29 and September 3, 16 per cent had published SPF records.

Scott Chasin, CTO, MX Logic said that combating spam has historically been a cat-and-mouse game, with newly developed technologies being followed almost immediately by spammer tactics that get around the new technologies. "SPF is no different. While SPF is an excellent tool for preventing phishing and fraud, it is not a cure-all for spam," he said.

The main problem is that SPF is one of the three anti-spam stands it has merged into its Sender ID proposal. Sender ID is looking like a contender to be backed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a key tool in fighting spam at a core level. µ