Habeas Unveils the Industry's Largest Email Reputation Database With SenderIndex

By Derek Iwasiuk
DomainInformer.com
May 09, 2006

San Jose - MOUNTAIN VIEW - Habeas Inc. (www.habeas.com) today announced it has created SenderIndex, an email reputation database of more than 60 million IP addresses and domains. By observing email traffic information from its network of more than 140,000 email servers, Habeas helps email receivers, ISPs and anti-spam solution providers to enhance email delivery and threat protections of their messaging networks.

"Reputation systems are an important weapon in the armory of any industrial strength anti-spam solution," said Mark Harris, global director of SophosLabs. "Sophos supports any initiative which works to make life harder for the spammers who plague internet inboxes. The introduction of Habeas SenderIndex is something which should be welcomed by anyone who is interested in making anti-spam filters even stronger in the future."

Habeas runs the IP addresses and domains it collects through the Habeas Reputation Engine, a set of automated tests that calculate and update information about each email sender. Complementary to existing data sources, the information contained in Habeas SenderIndex -- including IP addresses, domains, reputation status, volume and complaint data -- helps receivers effectively categorize and manage senders, based on their email reputation.

SenderIndex currently categorizes senders into three lists which recommend varying messaging filtering approaches:

-- Habeas SafeList represents the IP addresses which pass all of the
Habeas Reputation Engine tests. Senders on this list have also passed
the Habeas Certify email accreditation program -- a thorough email
practices validation and compliance program that ensures compliant
senders send legitimate email.
-- Recommendation: Receivers are encouraged to bypass unnecessary
filtering for emails identified by this list and deliver such
email directly to recipient inboxes.
-- Habeas AcceptList represents IP addresses which have passed all of
the Habeas Reputation Engine tests and are predicted to be not bad
senders (e.g. a spammer or phisher) based on their observed behavior,
message infrastructure and public reputation. However, these IP
addresses have not passed the Habeas Certify email accreditation
program.
-- Recommendation: Receivers are encouraged to further scrutinize
these senders (e.g., volume throttling, content filtering)
prior to actual message delivery.
-- Habeas BlockList represents IP addresses which fail the bulk of the
Habeas Reputation Engine tests. As these are IP addresses which fail
all (or nearly all) the tests, it is highly likely that these senders
are undesirable (i.e., these IP addresses appear to be spammers
or phishers).
-- Recommendation: Receivers should reject or throttle down
connections from these systems at the gateway.

"With SenderIndex, a sender's reputation goes beyond black and white lists and relies more on the specific data that enables receivers to make informed decisions on effectively managing inbound email," said Habeas CEO Des Cahill. "As a logical extension of current sender authentication efforts, our reputation services are bringing the industry one step closer to truly establishing trust between email senders and receivers."

The Habeas Network consists of more than 140,000 receiving mail networks in over 170 countries representing ISPs and enterprises, such as corporations, universities and government agencies, who use Habeas to determine what mail should be delivered to the inbox. The Habeas Network provides enhanced delivery to over 600 million email inboxes worldwide.

About Sophos

Sophos is a world leader in integrated threat management solutions, developing protection against viruses, spyware, spam and policy abuse for business, education and government. Sophos's reliably-engineered, easy-to-operate products protect more than 35 million users in more than 150 countries. Through 20 years' experience and a global network of threat analysis centers, the company responds rapidly to emerging threats -- no matter how complex -- and achieves the highest levels of customer satisfaction in the industry.

About Habeas Inc.

Email as a communications medium has become inconsistent and unreliable. Habeas is building a sustainable model for email so that legitimate businesses can reliably use email to communicate with their customers, and so that ISPs can be confident that email from these businesses consists solely of legitimate, business-critical communications. Habeas' email accreditation and reputation solutions enable companies to identify themselves as adopters of email best practices; to outsource the monitoring and resolution of their email compliance and deliverability problems to experts at Habeas; and to track and increase the delivery rates of their legitimate email. For more information, visit Habeas on the web at www.habeas.com.