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Available in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Sender ID allows companies to add a special SPF (a.k.a. Sender Policy Framework or "Sender Permitted From") record to their DNS servers that lists the mail servers authorized to send SMTP mail on behalf of their domains. The idea is that, as more companies adopt Sender ID technology, it can eventually be used to filter out spoofed SMTP messages.
Once Service Pack 2 has been applied, Microsoft Exchange will evaluate the Sender ID status of each inbound message and add the result to the message's properties in Outlook.
Even if you aren't interested in displaying Sender ID information through Microsoft Outlook, the technique I am about to show you is useful for creating filtering rules that get rid of spoofed messages.
Understanding Sender ID results
When a Sender ID check is performed against a message, there are seven possible results:
[TABLE]
Building a script to extract Sender ID information
Now that you know what the various error states mean, you need to build a script to extract Sender ID information from messages. Fortunately, you don't have to create a script from scratch, because Microsoft has already provided one.
The following script is taken from the Microsoft Web site. It is intended for use with Outlook 2003 and should be saved as a text file named SenderID.CFG in the \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\forms\language ID folder.
Configuring Outlook to use the script
You'll notice that the Sender ID status is displayed numerically. The following list shows what the various numbers mean:
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Changing Sender ID status viewing options
To see the actual Sender ID status rather than a numerical code:
About the author: Brien M. Posey, MCSE, is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with Windows 2000 Server and IIS. Brien has served as CIO for a nationwide chain of hospitals and was once in charge of IT security for Fort Knox. As a freelance technical writer he has written for Microsoft, TechTarget, CNET, ZDNet, MSD2D, Relevant Technologies and other technology companies. You can visit Brien's personal Web site at http://www.brienposey.com.
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The SenderID.cfg file does not work for me. I do not have a "Language ID" subfolder. Even after creating one, the file will not install. It says it cannot find an IPMS.ico file.
—Michael D.
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This doesn't work. I get the error: "The form could not be installed. The file cannot be found. File C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\FORMS\LanguageID\IPMS.ico."
—Wesley B.
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I hecked into this problem, and discovered that the forms library is not in a consistent location. In some versions of Microsoft Office, the forms library is located at \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 11\Forms\Languages; in other versions, the Languages folder doesn't exist, but a folder named 1033 does. On those versions, the SenderID.cfg file should be placed into \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 11\FORMS\1033 folder.
—Brien M. Posey, tip author
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