New technology to combat spam and phishing attacks has been approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The industry group has accepted a draft standard for DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), which uses encrypted digital signatures to validate the identity of an email sender.

The IETF represents internet firms such as Yahoo, Cisco, Sendmail and PGP Corporation. All have pledged to roll out the technology as soon as possible.

Although 90 to 99 per cent of e-mail comes from senders known to the recipient, establishing the identity of a sender is still the main factor in controlling spam because spammers use false or bogus identities.