Microsoft has announced the two key security updates to its email product Outlook.com helping fighting on common phishing attacks and providing users with more protection. The two updates include: DMARC, a standard which makes harder for anyone to deliver phishing mail to users’ inbox and the second one, Extended Validation Certificates (EV Certificates), providing more secure SSL connection when you are using Outlook.com. Here is what Microsoft has to say about the both updates:
- DMARC: Our DMARC implementation helps protect you by making it easier to visually identify mail from senders as legitimate, and helps keep spam and phishing messages from ever reaching your inbox. If a sender supports DMARC, we put a trusted sender logo next to their email indicating it is legitimate. The effect is cumulative; the more the email sending services that use DMARC, the broader the protection offered against phishing.
- Extended Validation Certificates (EV Certificates): A second type of phishing happens when an attacker puts up a website that pretends to be from one company, but is actually from another. SSL is an important part of protecting against phishing, but there have been recent cases where some SSL certificates have been compromised, which allowed attackers to impersonate SSL sites. EV Certificates make your browsing experience more secure than plain SSL by adding confidence that you are interacting with a trusted website and that your information is secure.
