Google, Microsoft, Yahoo join forces in the name of security
Their goal is to create a new encrypted email protocol
Comcast and LinkedIn also support this effort
A group of independent security researchers, in collaboration with Silicon Valley technology giants, submitted their proposal for a new email protocol, called SMTP STS (Strict Transport Security),
SMTP, which has been used to transmit email messages over the Internet for several decades, has never been a secure protocol, mainly because at the time it was invented, in 1982, online surveillance was not a problem among the few thousand interconnected computers that existed at the time.
As the internet grew and the activity of cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers increased, technology companies created the STARTTLS extension, which relies on the use of encrypted channels as a method of sending email messages.
[alert variation=”alert-success”]Unfortunately, SMTP-STARTTLS was never as secure as originally intended, mainly due to a series of design flaws that allowed attackers to bypass server security. This security gap is now being addressed by security researchers by creating a new extension to the protocol called SMTP STS.[/alert]
This new extension shares many commonalities with the HTTPS Strict Transport Security (HSTS) protocol. Just like HSTS, SMTP STS ensures message confidentiality and server authenticity by initiating an encrypted email communication channel.
The STMP STS allows servers participating in the e-mail exchange to authenticate each other, encrypted, and to decide in a secure way, inviolable from external sources, whether to use encryption – if it is supported of course – and how to act in the event that encryption is not supported.
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Comcast are participating in the effort to create this new extension of the SMTP protocol . Currently, SMTP STS is just a proposal that has been submitted to the IEEE (Internet Engineering Task Force), but judging by the fact that powerful names in the technology field have signed on, the chances of it becoming a reality soon are very high.
