Valimail Declares War on Fake Emails in U.S. Politics

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Valimail, the world's only provider of fully automated email authentication, announced today that it will provide its email anti-fraud service free of charge to any major-party U.S. election campaign, State Board of Elections, or voting system vendor.

"Bad actors are trying to disrupt our elections and sow chaos in our democracy. They are targeting email because it is one of the weakest points in digital communications," said Alexander García-Tobar, the CEO and co-founder of Valimail. "The upshot is that the public can't trust whether an email comes from a legitimate campaign or some Russian hacker. Worse, these fake emails are a major tool for hackers to compromise campaigns' digital networks, voter databases, and even election commissions around the country."

Spear phishing emails have been a major vector of election interference going back to the 2016 presidential election up to the current midterm election cycle, with recent attacks directed at Republican and Democratic candidates alike.

As with corporate cyber-attacks, most attackers targeting election officials or campaigns begin their attacks with fake emails. Such messages, which appear to come from a trusted coworker or organization, are the easiest and most effective way to execute a social engineering campaign that subsequently leads to account compromise, malware installation, or fraudulent bank transfers. Over 90 percent of cyber-attacks begin with spear phishing, and two-thirds of spear phish use fake "From:" addresses. At least 6.4 billion fake email messages like this are sent every day, Valimail research shows.

The Valimail Enforce service will be free through the November 2018 midterm elections for any U.S. campaign for congressional, Senate, gubernatorial, or statewide office, provided that the candidate is the designated Republican or Democratic nominee.

The service will also be available for free through 2018 for any state Board of Elections and for any vendor of election systems (such as voting machines, electronic pollbooks, and vote tabulators).

Valimail is also offering fraud protection through Valimail Enforce to the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, free of charge through the November 2020 Presidential election.

Valimail Enforce, the only FedRAMP-Authorized email anti-impersonation service, prevents this type of impersonation by ensuring that only authorized senders can use a campaign's domain name in their email messages. With Valimail Enforce in place and configured to an enforcement policy, fraudsters trying to trick people won't be able to impersonate campaigns.

"These rampant fake email attacks are a threat to the democracy we live in and love," said García-Tobar. "They are also preventable. It's time to put a stop to these offensive attempts to derail American democracy."

In addition to FedRAMP Authorization, Valimail Enforce is also SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and Privacy Shield certified, giving customers and campaigns assurance that the service is hardened against attack and built for stability, security, and reliability. The Valimail service provides 5 nines of availability. In addition, Valimail is the only email anti-impersonation solution that does not utilize any personally identifiable information (PII), such as the contents of email messages.

To enroll in Valimail's free domain protection service, campaigns should contact [email protected].

About Valimail

Valimail is the trusted leader in automated email authentication, with a comprehensive platform for anti-impersonation, brand protection, and anti-fraud defense used by corporations and federal agencies such as Uber, Fannie Mae, WeWork, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Valimail's patented, standards-compliant technology provides an unrivaled, fully automated solution for DMARC enforcement to stop phishing attacks, improve deliverability, provide comprehensive visibility of legitimate as well as unauthorized email senders, and protect organizations' reputations. Valimail authenticates billions of messages a month for some of the world's biggest companies, in finance, government, transportation, health care, manufacturing, media, technology, and more. Valimail is based in San Francisco. For more information visit www.valimail.com.

Media Contact
Dylan Tweney, Head of Communications, Valimail
[email protected], (415) 423-0192

SOURCE Valimail

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