Spam and Unsolicited Emails that Use a PGP Signature

If you have recently received an unsolicited commercial email (UCE) message and it contains a reference to either pgp.com or another of our domains, there are three possible causes.

The first and most likely cause is that the message contains a PGP® signature block. In these instances, someone is using a (usually) fake, PGP signature in an attempt to make the message appear valid. However, this mail has not originated from a host on the PGP network and it is not an advertisement for PGP Corporation.

Please do not contact PGP Corporation regarding such messages, because there is little the company can do about them.

The second cause of UCEs affecting PGP Corporation is the use of a forged "From" address. If you receive an email message purporting to be from a PGP email address, but the headers do not show the message originating from a PGP host, then the UCE is likely using a forged From address.

Although such instances are rare, PGP Corporation takes this matter seriously. If you receive such a message, please forward it with full headers to abuse@pgp.com.

The third possible cause for a UCE message would be that a host on the PGP network is acting as an open relay.

PGP staff exert great care to ensure this does not happen, so if you receive a UCE message that contains pgp.com host information in the headers, please report it to abuse@pgp.com.

For information regarding PGP signatures, consult the Web.

For a tutorial on reading mail headers, please visit: http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers.html

For information regarding PGP Corporation:
http://www.pgp.com/

"When we first started to look at encryption products, we felt PGP® solutions were the best in the marketplace at the time to meet our requirements. We're comfortable using PGP® encryption, and the process is now very easy from a user perspective because PGP Corporation has eliminated a lot of the complexity-of-use issues."

- Hugh Fraser, Head of IT Security, BAE Systems