A Novel Traceback Technology for E-mail Sender Verification : Type of submission: Regular Research Paper / Most relevant symposium: CSCI-ISCW

Abstract

Given the rapid growth and the large-scale investment in information technology, many organizations conduct business through email. With the active use of email, malicious cyberattacks have also increased. In particular, the damage caused by impersonation, forgery, and alteration of email has been drastically increasing. While the existing email security solutions scan and examine large mails, advertising mails, and junk mails as major targets, they are not able to identify or distinguish the sender of impersonated or forged email. This study developed a novel email processing system based on SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) reply codes. In the proposed system, the SMTP reply codes related to the loss of email are used to perform traceback and verify the sender of emails. When an email is received, the system generates verification request session and conducts communication to the sender’s email server and DNS. According to information that the sender’s email server offers back, the proposed system discriminates the authenticity of email senders. The proposed system was introduced to actual institutions and performance was validated. As a result, the proposed system has significantly improved the rate of email sender verification. We hope that the results of this study can serve as a useful guideline for the development of email security.