What Is BIMI?
BIMI is designed to make email more trustworthy.
Why Is BIMI Necessary?
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A Deloitte report released in 2020claimedthat 91% of all cyber attacks start with a phishing email.
These scams often targetpayment processors like PayPalor modernpeer-to-peer services like Zelleusing email as their preferred method of communication.
Email hasn’t changed a lot since it was first introduced.
BIMI is a step forward in making email a more trustworthy platform.
How Does BIMI Work?
The technology leans heavily on Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, orDMARC.
This email authentication protocol was designed to help prevent the unauthorized use of domain names.
In addition, technology known as DomainKeys Identified Mail adds digital signatures to each message to authenticate outgoing emails.
Once again, only brands need to worry about this infrastructure and incorporating these steps.
Yahoo! Mail
Which Services Support BIMI?
Fortunately, some of the biggest services have already implemented support for BIMI, including Gmail, Yahoo!
Mail, AOL, Fastmail, and Apple Mail in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura.
Whether you’ll see evidence of BIMI in your inbox is another issue entirely.
Google has produced anexplainerfor how BIMI’s rollout works in Gmail within Google Workspace.
Mail is also on the BIMI bandwagon, having had support for the standard since 2018.
More sophisticated scams may involvespear phishingorwhaling, a form of social engineering.
