PKI Digital Signing
To help prevent fraudulent mass email messages, the Division of Information Technology strongly encourages all users of DoIT's mass email service to use a University of Wisconsin-Madison digital signature on all outgoing mass email messages. A digital signature provides verifiable proof of the identity of the author, and can differentiate between an authentic mass email message and one that has been forged or altered.
DoIT is making UW-Madison digital certificates available to facilitate the digital signing of email. To learn more, please visit www.doit.wisc.edu/middleware/pki. DoIT provides full technical support.
Benefits of Using PKI Technology with Mass Email
The campus community depends on email. But how can you be sure that the mass email message you just got is really from the person listed on the From line? What prevents someone from intercepting, reading, or altering the message before you read it?
Digital signatures essentially guarantee that a signed email you receive is not a hoax or attempted impersonation. You can be sure that an incoming mass email message with an official UW-Madison digital signature is authentic and has not been altered in any way from its original form.
You can quickly and easily verify a digital signature; see https://helpdesk.wisc.edu/page.php?id=4096 to find out how. Most email clients now support the use of digital signatures, and the few that do not will simply treat the signature as a harmless attachment.
If you are planning to send a mass email, consider obtaining your own UW-Madison digital certificate so you can affix a digital signature to your message. For details, see www.doit.wisc.edu/middleware/pki.