Secure Email Relay for Third-Party DKIM Authentication
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Solution Overview
Problem
In the post-cloud world, enterprise organizations face challenges in authenticating email messages that originate from third-party sender organizations, as these messages may not be validated using traditional authentication methods, leading to potential spoofing and misclassification as spam.
Innovation Solution
A secure email relay system that validates authentication credentials, injects a DKIM signature of a second domain into email messages, scans for spam and viruses, and ensures compliance with DMARC, allowing third-party senders to authenticate as the enterprise organization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional authentication methods are used for email messages, then messages originating from the organization's own enterprise computer systems can be authenticated, but messages from third-party sender organizations cannot be authenticated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a secure email relay system that acts as an intermediary between third-party senders and the organization's email infrastructure. The relay receives messages from third-party senders, validates them against DMARC policies, and forwards authenticated messages to the organization. This mediator enables third-party messages to be authenticated without requiring the senders to implement the organization's internal authentication infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the email authentication process into distinct components: domain-based message authentication (DMARC policy validation), SPF record verification, DKIM signature checking, and quarantine management. This segmentation allows third-party senders to be authenticated through specific mechanisms (SPF/DKIM) while maintaining the organization's overall security posture through policy-based control.
2Reliability
If all traffic using the organization's domain is required to pass authentication, then spoofing is prevented, but legitimate third-party messages are blocked
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the authentication parameters from requiring internal infrastructure (pre-cloud model) to accepting external authentication mechanisms (post-cloud model). Specifically, it adopts DMARC, SPF, and DKIM as the authentication parameters, which allow third-party senders to prove their legitimacy through domain-based verification rather than requiring direct connection to the organization's internal systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a universal authentication approach that works with multiple sender types (internal employees, third-party vendors, cloud services) through a single DMARC policy framework. The secure email relay provides multi-functional capability by handling authentication, scanning, quarantine, and delivery for diverse message sources using consistent security policies.
3Ease of operation
If messages from third-party senders are accepted without authentication, then email delivery is simple, but spoofing and spam become prevalent
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary authentication actions before delivering third-party messages to the organization. The secure email relay pre-validates SPF records, checks DKIM signatures, and verifies DMARC policy compliance before accepting messages for delivery. This preliminary action ensures that only authenticated messages pass through while maintaining automated processing that preserves delivery simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent converts the potential harm of third-party messages (spoofing risk) into a benefit by using the authentication requirements as a filtering mechanism. Messages that fail authentication are automatically quarantined or rejected, while authenticated messages are delivered normally. The security requirements that initially seem to complicate delivery actually serve to identify and accept legitimate third-party senders.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the disclosure relate to processing external messages using a secure email relay. A computing platform may receive, from a message source server associated with a first domain, a first email message and a first set of authentication credentials. Based on validating the first set of authentication credentials, the computing platform may inject, into the first email message, a DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signature of a second domain different from the first domain, which may produce a signed message that identifies itself as originating from the second domain. Based on scanning and validating content of the signed message, the computing platform may send the signed message to a message recipient server, which may cause the message recipient server to validate the DKIM signature of the signed message and determine that the signed message passes Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) with respect to the second domain.