Fergie's Tech Blog

An email authentication standard with broad industry support could be ready within two months, providing e-commerce companies with a new weapon to beat phishing attacks.

Domainkeys Identified Mail (DKIM), a joint effort between Cisco, Yahoo and a number of other vendors may be ready as soon as the end of July, providing some small glitches are ironed out.

"There's still some disagreement over minor points but it should be ready soon," said Eric Allman, CTO of Sendmail, who is working on the project. "The key is breaking down the barriers that existed before, no one company can own this. It's very positive."

At the beginning of June SC first reported the amalgamation of Yahoo's Domainkeys and Cisco's Identified Mail systems. The scheme has received broad industry backing and, once ratified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is expected to be adopted widely by e-commerce companies.