Securing Electronic Mail
Electronic mail is the lifeblood of modern organizational communication. The capability to send and receive mail messages from external sources is a common requirement. As is the case with any information from external sources, e-mail presents a host of security problems, including the following:
Flooding. The e-mail server is hammered with a large number of messages, which can result in denial of service and system crash.
Spoofing. The e-mail message has an incorrect sender name or address.
Viruses. Application attachments may contain hostile macros (for example, the ActiveX-based Melissa).
Nonrepudiation. The receiver needs to verify that the sender actually sent the message, and the sender needs to verify that the receiver got the message.