Chapter 22: Electronic Mail Security

Section 22.1 Secure Email and S/MIME

Section 22.2 DomainKeys Identified Mail

Chapter 6: Malicious Software

Chapter 6 covers a wide range malicious software techniques, the threats they impost and the possible attacks. This chapter is interesting although much of it is considered background reading for the scope of this course. There are some sections that have more relevance for e-mail related security:

Section 6.5 Propagation–Social Engineering–SPAM E-mail, Trojans

Read the section about Spam carefully. Also see the lecture slides for a more detailed description of the mechanics of spam.

Section 6.7 Payload–Attack Agent–Zombie, Bots

Bots and zombies are used by spammers. Read briefly to get a basic understanding of the techniques used in bots, and consider how this can be used for the purpose of sending spam. See the lecture slides as well for spam attacks using zombies.

Section 6.8 Payload–Information Theft–Keyloggers, Phishing, Spyware

The section "Phishing and Identity Theft" has a short discussion of attacks using social engineering techniques, which can be carried out over e-mail.

Other Reading/Not covered in the book

The first part of the lecture slides covers spam and anonymous e-mail. This complements the textbook, so you need to study both the book and the slides. In particular, the concepts of Open Relays and Open Proxies are not covered in the textbook, neither are techniques for avoiding spam, such as blacklisting, greylisting, and smart hosts.

In the Computer Security book, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is not covered. For that, use the lecture slides.