Tech industry ups ante on phishing

A coalition of tech industry giants including PayPal, Google, AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft have put together a working group to crack down on the problem of phishing by improving online authentication and through the development of other standards.

The Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is opening a dialogue between e-mail providers, senders and security organisations to tackle the problem as part of the 15-member strong coalition as explained by the DMARC chair, PayPal's Brett McDowell:

"Email phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the internet as a whole.

Industry co-operation - combined with technology and consumer education - is crucial to fight phishing."