Edison Mail adds advanced spam and phishing detection, but it'll cost you

Edison Mail is one of the most popular Android clients, thanks to its handy features and pleasing interface. It gained a "plus" version on iOS back in August, which offers extra anti-phishing protection and contact verification. Sadly, Android users were left out until now, but the app just made its way to the Play Store today.

The three extra features offered by Edison Mail+ are called Verify Sender, Update Contacts, and LinkedIn Discovery. They're part of a subscription that costs $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

Verify Sender uses an AI-based method to run a handshake with the sender's email server. If the latter doesn’t send back an acceptable response, the app notifies you the email might be suspicious. What's great about this feature is that it doesn't require the sender's email to have a valid DMARC configuration, which most users actually don't have, meaning Edison Mail+'s method is compatible with virtually any provider. In addition, Verify Sender also performs additional scans in real-time to assess for potential threats or scams, analyzing more than 70 spam databases.

Update Contacts checks that the contact information on your device matches the ones in the sender's email, making sure you always have their latest particulars. If something has changed, you'd be prompted to update it with a single tap. Similarly, LinkedIn Discovery allows you to quickly access a contact's LinkedIn profile, as Edison Mail+ will search for it and show a link at the top of the message.

Despite these cool-sounding features, the subscription price seems particularly steep for me. Most email clients are able to detect phishing for no additional cost, and although Edison Mail+ uses a much more advanced method, you'd really need to be targeted by hackers to need this extra protection. Also, I'm not sure how reliable the method is, meaning it could warn you when it can't validate a genuine sender or fail to detect a potentially nefarious sender. When to comes to updating someone's contact details and finding them on LinkedIn, copying and pasting information only takes a few seconds, so I doubt paying for these features is worth it. That being said, additional features are supposed to come soon, which could make the subscription more interesting.

PRESS RELEASE

New Edison Mail+ Adds Powerful Anti-Phishing Protection to Android Devices

Premium security subscription includes anti-phishing technology invented by Edison to warn you as suspicious senders enter your mailbox, ahead of potential scam efforts.

San Jose, CA — February 2, 2021 — Edison Software, today announced the release of Edison Mail+ for Android, a brand new AI-based email security subscription plan offering powerful anti-phishing technology engineered in response to the $12 Billion email scam epidemic preying on consumers worldwide. The plan offers three new security enhancing features that can be layered on top of the existing Edison Mail Android app, including Verify Sender, Update Contacts, and LinkedIn Discovery. Edison Mail+ is available immediately on the Google Play Store for $14.99 per month, or $99.99 per year.

Introducing Edison Mail+

For the first time, email phishing scam detection comes to your Android device and inbox with Edison Mail+, the only app offering a critical extra layer of deep-scan protection to detect, warn, and verify potential email attacks as soon as they enter your mailbox. Receive a warning before falling victim to costly phishing, identity spoofing, and malware efforts.

Verify Sender, the vanguard feature of Edison Mail+, is a powerful new AI-based technical protocol that conducts a handshake between sender/receiver across inbound mail. If a sender’s email server doesn’t respond as “authentic” mail should, a suspicious email warning to the user is triggered. Verify Sender then applies a four-level deep investigation of new emails in real-time as they enter the inbox to assess for potential threats or scams.

Here’s how it works:

Edison Mail+ checks how trustworthy the origin of an email is based on whether it is a permitted sender by the domain owner or not (also known as SPF & DMARC validation). While some email service providers offer Authenticated Logo functionality based on an open standard called BIMI, which requires email senders to implement DMARC configuration and host their brand image at a certain URL-- only 2% of email senders, and less than 100 of the Fortune 500, have a valid DMARC configuration and the adoption rate is extremely low (2% in 10 years).

This is important because hackers can still impersonate most of the businesses and organizations that do not have DMARC, and authenticated logos are not effective against those types of spoof-email phishing attacks.

With 98% of email senders NOT configuring their domains securely via DMARC, they require additional anti-phishing protection for effective security. Verify Sender is unique and set apart from anti-phishing technology offered by existing email service providers because it offers the following layers of security to cover the 98% of senders that do not have DMARC configured:

· Detects and alerts you in real-time if emails are sent from invalid disposable domains that frequently pass through your email service provider undetected. (Edison Mail sends an anonymous TCP connection to the sender’s domain and a probe command to check if the domain can receive email.)

· Detects name spoofing based on your previous communication history (Edison Mail’s built-in AI can recognize and differentiate between who normally contacts you or not).

· Scans 70+ spam databases in real-time that may have registered and flagged the email sender as a spam or scam associated address.

Additionally, all of the AI-based deep-scanning takes place on the mobile handset directly, no information leaves your device, and the functionality is built securely into your inbox to protect you from scams.

Edison Mail+ also includes Update Contacts and LinkedIn Discovery, putting AI-based contact recognition into your inbox. Update Contacts regularly checks whether contact information you have in your Android phone’s address book matches the details of the email sender contacting you. Update contact details in one tap as their information changes, a simplified process so you never question whether you have the right contact details for who you know.

LinkedIn Discovery offers a faster and simpler way for you to immediately access a contact’s LinkedIn profile. If an email contact of yours has a LinkedIn profile, Edison Mail+ will discover it and showcase the LinkedIn logo at the top of the message within the avatar bubble, so you never have to go search for the information. In just two taps, you will leave their message and be directed to their LinkedIn profile, without wasting any extra time looking up an email sender or recipient yourself. When you’re finished vetting the LinkedIn profile or sending your invitation to connect, you’ll be able to go back to the message in your Edison Mail app inbox.

Edison Mail+ aims to protect consumers from this growing danger with three unique safety features.

Verify Sender is the first-of-its-kind feature to proactively warn you as suspicious senders enter your inbox through a four level deep email validation scan.

Update Contacts protects you from identity spoofers by ensuring that the contact details of those you keep in contact with match those provided in their email contact details.

LinkedIn Discovery offers a faster and simpler way for you to immediately access a contact’s LinkedIn profile to learn more about them and connect if you wish.

Online scammers haven’t been taking any days off during the pandemic, if anything they’ve been working overtime. With continued fears concerning COVID-19, phishing scams have grown increasingly creative with their tactics by leveraging alluring offers COVID-19 cures, fake masks, and more. Just in June of last year, scammers targeted email users by pretending to be Google Photos, leading to many users downloading malware.

According to the FBI, the latest and greatest phishing scam involves emails, text messages, or phone calls offering early access or more information about the COVID-19 vaccine. Preying on the fears and hopes of people worldwide, these scammers deceive people into providing their credit card numbers, personal information, and downloading malicious software onto their devices.

The phishing epidemic has never been more sinister. More than three billion fraudulent emails are sent per day, and all too many inboxes are left vulnerable and open to attack.

In recognition of this epidemic, last August Edison Mail debuted Edison Mail+, a security subscription offering a new and unique approach to anti-phishing for iOS. This subscription service offers unparalleled inbox protection for consumers to access in mobile email, protecting users from the 98% of emails that otherwise arrive unchecked for malicious intent.

Beginning today, Edison Mail+ is now also available for Android device users.

The vanguard feature of Edison Mail+ for Android is Verify Sender, an anti-phishing technology invented by Edison that is more effective than those offered by leading email service providers today. As you use your Edison Mail app as you usually do, Verify Sender operates silently in the background, monitoring the trustworthiness of emails you receive based on the validity of the sender and domain owner. This is done partially through intense SPF and DMARC validation — a configuration that only 2% of email senders currently live up to.

Once a potentially fraudulent email is detected, Verify Sender will provide a bright orange warning to you. If this warning is tapped on, Verify Sender will then begin a four-level deep investigation of the email in real-time by scanning over 70 spam databases, checking the validity of the email header, confirming the email address, and seeing if the sender is attempting to spoof someone’s identity. You will be able to see these checks as they happen, and will receive confirmation of which specific danger you received in your inbox. With all the risks in the world today, Verify Sender ensures that phishing emails aren’t one of them.

Update Contacts is yet another safety focused feature from Edison Mail+. We know that it’s all too easy to have an address book fall out of date, which leaves the door open for imposters and identity spoofed emails to invade your inbox. That’s why this feature places AI-based contact recognition within your inbox to ensure that the contact information in your inbox matches the email sender details of those you correspond with. Once a discrepancy has been discovered, Update Contacts will offer the suggested change, and if you choose to accept it, the contact in your address book will be corrected with a single tap.

Offered in two plans, consumers can decide whether they’d like to pay $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year to keep their inboxes safe and secure during this dangerous phishing epidemic. Verify Sender, Update Contacts, and LinkedIn Discovery are the first features for Edison Mail+ for Android, but consumers can rest assured that additionally useful functionality will be coming down the pipeline in the coming months and years.

1. Detects and alerts you in real-time if emails are sent from invalid disposable domains that frequently pass through your email service provider undetected. (Edison Mail sends an anonymous TCP connection to the sender’s domain and a probe command to check if the domain can receive email.)

2. Detects name spoofing based on your previous communication history (Edison Mail’s built-in AI can recognize and differentiate between who normally contacts you or not).

3. Scans 70+ spam databases in real-time that may have registered and flagged the email sender as a spam or scam associated address.