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Major Momentum: Apple Supports BIMI in iOS 16

Sep

12

2022

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Chris Bailey

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Recently, Apple announced support for BIMI in its latest iOS-16 features. This is a major momentum boost for BIMI. With Apple’s support for BIMI, millions more will obtain both the security benefits and enhanced branding benefits that BIMI affords. This is great news for the email ecosystem as it was just last year on July 12th, that Gmail announced production support for BIMI.

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI), is a standard that aims to drive adoption of strong sender authentication for the entire email ecosystem. When configured properly, a brand’s registered logo will appear in the message avatar slot. Furthermore, Apple is adding text that will show the email is” Digitally Certified”, which explains that the email was verified as coming from the owner of the logo and sending email domain.

Like Gmail, Apple is implementing BIMI via a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). The VMC is a cryptographic container of the brand’s identity and logo which is confirmed by a Certificate Authority like Entrust.

Gmail and Apple’s implementation of VMC also require Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) with a policy of quarantine @ 100% or reject to enable the brand’s logo to appear. Additionally, the VMC also requires that the brand’s logo be a registered trademark within a supported jurisdiction.

See how VMC works or if you are interested in a VMC for your organization? Go to: https://entrust.com/vmc

Since the launch of VMCs last year, Entrust has seen rapid growth with our customers wanting to leverage the security and marketing benefits of BIMI, but also support from senior organization leaders from Bank of America, Trend Micro, Ally Financial and others proactively promoting BIMI as a foundational technology.

History

Gmail, Apple and Fastmail are leveraging the Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) along with a Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) protocol policy of quarantine @ 100% or reject to enable this technology.

Apple’s support for BIMI is a significant milestone for email users, and we take more than a little pride in our role in this milestone. Over five years ago, Entrust worked with Google and other members of a group called the AuthIndicators Working Group to create the VMC.

During this development period, Entrust helped guide this new offering to market. We created the first version of the VMC Requirements and issued the world’s first VMC to a customer during a Gmail pilot program.

We have already signed up several partners that our customers can work with, some of whom like Red Sift have fully integrated into our API for VMCs. The full partner list can be found here.

Apple’s support for BIMI using VMC creates major momentum for the adoption BIMI, as millions more email recipients will obtain both the security benefits and enhanced branding benefits that BIMI affords. For organizations, If you have not considered implementing BIMI, now is the time to do so. Visit us at: https://entrust.com/vmc

Here's how the displayed logos look on iOS.

Apple image logo

ChrisBailey
Chris Bailey
Vice President, Trust Services
Chris Bailey is the VP of Trust Services for Entrust. Bailey is a co-creator of Verified Mark Certificates and Government Mark Certificates, used to convey logo and identity information in messages. He is also the co-creator of Extended Validation Certificates and Domain Validated Certificates, used to secure TLS/SSL connections. Bailey also co-created the first publicly trusted PDF signing certificate with Adobe. Having served in the industry since 1998, Bailey is a current and founding member of industry standard groups the CA/Browser Forum and the PKI Consortium, where he continues to actively promote industry best practices and education.
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