Jan 6, 2011 17:49 GMT  ·  By

Google is ramping up its anti-spam efforts by offering customers of its Google Apps cloud-service the possibility of signing their outgoing emails via DKIM.

DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, is an email authentication method in which an email is associated with a domain name in order to ensure its origin.

This validation method is an implementation of public-key cryptography, where the signer attaches a digital signature to the message.

The signature is provided via the "DKIM-Signature:" field in the email header and the public key required to validate it is obtained via DNS.

DKIM has been available in Gmail since its launch in 2004 and is also provided by other large email providers like Yahoo! or FastMail.

However, since Google Apps account owners use their own domain names, Google's Gmail signatures are useless for them.

Because of this, the organization has worked on implementing a cost-free solution that lets Google Apps users enable DKIM for their domains and outgoing emails in a few simple steps.

Implementing on-premises DKIM signing solutions can prove costly and complicated to manage because they require complex configurations and even additional servers. Google's cloud-based solution promises to remove all that hassle.

"Today, we mark another notch in the spam-fighting belt: we’re making it possible for all Google Apps customers to sign their outgoing messages with DKIM, so their sent mail is less likely to get caught up in recipients’ spam filters," announced Adam Dawes, Google's enterprise product manager.

Google Apps administrators will find the new feature under "Advanced Tools" in the control panel and it can be set up in just a few clicks. "We help the most-phished brands on the Internet manage their mail authentication programs, and the Google Apps solution is the simplest that we've encountered," commented Kelly Wanser, CEO of eCert, an email security provider.