Leading email providers join hands to fight spam

World’s leading email providers including Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and Microsoft have announced to join hands to collectively fight the increasing menace of e-mail and phishing attacks.

Following 18 months of collaborative work, 15 email providers yesterday announced formation of DMARC.org (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) a technical working group to develop standards for reducing the threat of deceptive e-mails, such as spam and phishing.

Among other things, it will outline an enhanced vision for e-mail authentication that can scale up to today’s Internet needs.

The group’s work includes a draft specification that helps create a feedback loop between legitimate e-mail senders and receivers to make impersonation more difficult for phishers trying to send fraudulent email.

“E-mail phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the Internet as a whole,” said Mr Brett McDowell, chair of DMARC.org and Senior Manager of Customer Security Initiatives at PayPal.

“Industry cooperation — combined with technology and consumer education — is crucial to fight phishing,” Mr McDowell said.

The DMARC specification addresses concerns that have traditionally hindered widespread deployment of an authenticated, trusted email ecosystem, the statement said.

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