METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTHENTICATING ELECTRONIC MAIL

A method and apparatus for authenticating an electronic message are provided. The method includes investigating data in a header of the electronic message, and generating an authenticity indicator in response to the investigation. The authenticity indicator may provide an indication of the likelihood that the electronic message was sent from a purported sender visible to a recipient of the electronic message. In certain embodiments, the method includes presenting the authenticity indicator to the recipient of the electronic message. Investigating data in the header may include parsing the header to obtain purported sender data in a from field populated at a mail client and to obtain actual originator data, comparing the purported sender data and actual originator data, and generating the authenticity indicator in response to the comparison. The from field may be the “FROM: . . . ” field of an email message provided to identify a sender of the email message.