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.