CipherTrust toolbar adds phish net to e-mail

E-mail security specialist CipherTrust on Monday released a free toolbar designed to help keep in-boxes clean. The TrustedSource Toolbar fights spam, phishing and e-mail fraud, the company said in a statement. The toolbar is available for Outlook and Lotus Notes. A version designed for Web-based mail, including Microsoft's Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, is due during the second quarter, the company said.

The CipherTrust toolbar uses the company's so-called reputation technology to identify potential threats. Such technology, billed as the next big thing in e-mail security, uses data collected on e-mail senders to determine whether a specific computer has been sending legitimate e-mail or spam. Toolbar users can also flag and report spam and phishing attacks. Those reports will be used in the determination of a sender's reputation. Numerous toolbars are available for Web browsers to flag fraudulent Web sites, but the CipherTrust add-on seeks to take on the problem in the in-box, where phishing e-mails land first. Other companies that offer products that seek to help fight phishing in the in-box include Iconix.