Eudora’s new approach to phish scams

The newest version of Eudora e-mail includes ScamWatch, which analyzes Web links embedded in e-mail messages to warn users when they don’t match hostnames. Such discrepancies in IP addresses could signal the e-mail is a fake used to con people into giving up sensitive data later used to clean out their accounts. “Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is preventing the click,” explains Bill Ganon, vice president of the Eudora Product Group. Eudora 6.2, released this month, also incorporates OpenSSL for added security, believing the open standard provides greater compatibility and easier negotiations when e-mails are authenticated.

Though its customer base includes such diverse enterprises as NASA, The New York Times and major universities like Harvard and Yale, Eudora has never seriously threatened market rivals Microsoft’s Outlook, Exchange or Lotus Notes, which combined can be found on more than 90% of all desktops. Not being the 800-pound gorilla has its advantages, since Eudora isn’t a favorite target for virus writers. But the e-mail program, bought by wireless giant Qualcomm Inc. 12 years ago, also has made itself less attractive to attackers by disallowing HTML tags that allow automatic execution of code. It also automatically turns off auto-scripting by default and uses a different file extension for address book files to prevent address harvesting. “We may fall to a more conservative scheme, but we also aren’t making the headlines. So it’s probably a good thing,” Ganon said.