The U.S. National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have released a new guide that observes methods of making email more secure.
The guide, titled DNS-Based Email Security, examines the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) specifications and DNS-Based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) protocol.
The guide highlights the constant challenges encountered by server-based email security mechanisms, which are vulnerable to attacks through fraudulent or invalid digital certificates.
The guidance also mentions that server-based security systems provide a false sense of security with terrible consequences that “frequently involve unauthorized parties being able to read or modify supposedly security information, or to use email as a vector for inserting malware into the system in order to gain access to enterprise systems or information.”
Many feel that this report is long overdue. Tom Kellerman, CEO of Strategic Cyber Ventures, claims, “Eighty percent of cyber-attack are leverage via spearphishing which takes advantages of authentication and encryption that is deployed in email communications.” He also added that regulators should mandate NIST’s recommendation to ensure safety and security in America’s cyberspace.
And that’s not even mentioning the vast amount of attention email security has received in the last few months. From the breaches at the Democratic Confessional Campaign Committee (DCC) the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails, and the 11.5 million leaked document from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
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