While it has long been a popular feature in free web-based email services, the use of plus addresses has become more widespread in business contexts in recent years. A growing number of companies are using plus addressing to organize and manage inbound emails more efficiently. With the latest iteration, Retarus Email Security now fully supports these address variants – a significant step towards facilitating even more flexibility and user-friendliness in the daily email traffic.
What is plus addressing exactly?
Plus addressing involves users adding extensions to their usual email address by adding a plus sign (+) and following it with the tag of their choice. In this way, they can receive messages dedicated to specific topics without having to set up new email accounts or use a new email address. For instance, john.smith@company.com can be turned into john.smith+newsletter@company.com. In technical terms, the email is still delivered to the original email account.
In the corporate context, this unlocks an abundance of opportunities to organize one’s inbox more efficiently. Inbound messages can be presorted automatically according to topics or sources, such as +recruiting, +events or +crm. In addition, it becomes easier to trace data leaks and detect improper sharing.
Why plus addresses pose challenges for email security
Although plus addressing may be very handy for users, its benefits have often been restricted due to email security. A lot of systems struggle to interpret plus addresses correctly and thus treat them as unknown or invalid recipients. As a result, emails have either been rejected erroneously or security mechanisms such as directory filters, allowlists or CxO fraud filters have not worked as intended.
Especially when it comes to sensitive environments with strict security requirements, this may lead to substantial problems, ranging from undelivered emails to excessive workloads for IT administrators.
Retarus provides smart support for plus addressing
With the latest Retarus Email Security update, plus addresses are recognized, processed and correctly assigned at every stage of email traffic. If a company chooses to activate the option in their email system, it will no longer make any difference whether messages are sent to an email address with or without a “+ tag”. The system deals with both types of address in exactly the same way and delivers them to the same recipient.
Familiar Retarus security functions such as advanced threat protection, AI-powered sandboxing or our patented post-delivery protection of course remain fully effective. The same goes for the correct assignment of quarantine, reporting and analysis features.
Would you like to actively start using plus addresses?
We would be pleased to explain in detail how you can incorporate plus addresses into your email communication – securely and efficiently. Our support team is happy to help you achieve the best possible configuration.