According to the announcement Thursday, PKI-based SecureEmail complies with industry standards enabling digital email signatures, assuring recipients the email has not been tampered with during transmission. Available for free in either regular or Pro edition, SecureEmail can be deployed with either Comodo or third-party SSL Certificates. Version 1.0 of Comodo SecureEmail comes in either regular or Pro edition.

Comodo chief executive officer and chief security architect Melih Abdulhayoglu said SecureEmail is the latest contribution to the company's desktop security solutions. "We create solutions that enable people to communicate, collaborate and access the Internet confidently...[and] continue to innovate with SecureEmail, a worthy addition to our award-winning free solutions," Abdulhayoglu said in a statement.

According to Comodo, "email is one of the most vulnerable systems to attack," but SecureEmail is designed to make it easy to secure. Comodo describes it as an "install-and-forget application" because it can automatically encrypt and sign all messages in Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird and other S/MIME-capable email clients, promising to walk users through difficult processes like public-key exchange.

Comodo said it is offering SecureEmail for free to help facilitate signing and encrypting email adoption to protect users from the vulnerabilities in sending email over the Internet. SecureEmail helps companies further their compliance with HIPAA, SOX, GLBA, PCI and the UK Data Protection Act, which have previously been too complex for most users.

Earlier this week, a US university email system had been compromised, allowing spammers to send 1.5 million phony emails. Email-based phishing attacks have also been on the rise this year, targeting users in a more sophisticated manor, making email authentication increasingly important.