1. A system of communicating electronically over a communications medium regarding an account, comprising the steps of: (a) maintaining information pertaining to the account in a database such that the information is retrievable by a unique identifier, the information including security features of a device that generates digital signatures using a private key of a public-private key pair; (b) associating the public key of the device with the unique identifier in the database; (c) receiving an electronic communication including the unique identifier and a digital signature for a message generated by a suspect device; (d) authenticating the message using the public key associated with the unique; (e) upon successful authentication of the message, identifying the security features retrievable by the unique identifier as being the security features of the genuine device; and (f) gauging the risk that said generated digital signature was fraudulently sent based on said identified security features of the genuine device.