Truemark Email Identification

Inexperienced users and even some experienced users may find it sometimes difficult to identify legitimate and fake emails.

It is sometimes difficult to tell if the email that just arrived in your mail inbox came from a legitimate company such as eBay, Amazon or Citibank, or if it is just another phishing attempt that tries to steal your account credentials or other information.

There are some basic guidelines that help identify phishing emails. They are not that hard to learn, read our anti-phishing tips for pointers. Many inexperienced computer users think that it's complicated, they prefer an easier way of telling if an email is legit or not.

Enter Truemark by Iconix. Truemark uses authentication techniques to identify more than 1500 different company email addresses including the three companies in the example above. It is backed by some of the most popular shopping and financial websites on the Internet which makes it attractive for many users.

Even better is the fact that the software is free to use and compatible with several popular email providers like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Aol Webmail but also Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007.

Another advantage of Truemark is that is it working in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox which covers almost 90% of the web browser market. The software will install a Browser Helper Object in Internet Explorer and an add-on in Firefox that powers its functionality.

Truemark will automatically scan the emails in the mail inbox if the user opens a supported email client or web email client. It will display a verification icon next to the email to notify the user that the email is legit.

Moving the mouse over the icon will show an overlay with additional information about the sender and if the sender passed both identification and authentication.

Update: Please note that the software has not been updated for a while. The download page lists Windows 7 as the last supported Windows version, and Outlook 2007 as the last desktop email client.

It appears as if the project has been put on ice by the company and that it is unlikely that new versions will be released in the future. While it may still work, it is more likely that at least part of the email ID functionality won't work properly anymore.

Please note that the extension and browser helper object won't work anymore in newer versions of the web browsers. Gmail users may enable the Labs project "Authentication icon for verified senders" which adds a verification icon to senders such as eBay for improved security.

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