Google, PayPal, Facebook and Microsoft team up to eliminate phishing

Email phishing is a pretty common scam that catches quite a lot of folks who don’t know better when it comes to telling if an email is fake or not. In case you’re wondering what email phishing is, it basically is a scam where people send out emails posing as official companies/sites requesting for your personal information and account details. People who fall into the trap end up giving away their details to scammers with malicious intent.

Well, it looks like a bunch of web giants are trying to make sure that it’s not a problem anymore. Google, PayPal, Facebook and Microsoft have reportedly teamed up to create a standard to help boost email security. Known as DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance), the standard aims to stop the spread of email that looks like it is from a legitimate sender.

DMARC authenticates email by requiring both parties to implement the standard – in this case, the web service/company i.e. Facebook and the email service i.e. Gmail. When an email claiming to be from a certain organization is sent to a user’s inbox, the mail service checks it for a signature to ensure if it is authentic. If it isn’t, the message is refused, ensuring users don’t even get a chance to accidentally give away their personal details.

Sounds like a good idea that will benefit the majority of internet users who can’t discern phishing emails on their own. Hopefully everybody goes onboard with the standard, and we can see phishing eliminated.

George Wong
Categories: Web
Tags: phishing