Tech companies team up to combat e-mail scams
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS January 30, 2012 10:22AM
Updated: January 30, 2012 5:49PM
Google, Facebook and other big tech companies are jointly designing a system for combating email scams known as phishing.
Such scams try to trick people into giving away passwords and other personal information by sending emails that look as if they come from a legitimate bank, retailer or other business.
When Bank of America customers see emails that appear to come from the bank, they might click on a link that takes them to a fake site mimicking the real Bank of America’s.
There, they might enter personal details, which scam artists can capture and use for fraud.
To combat that, 15 major technology and financial companies have formed an organization to design a system for authenticating emails from legitimate senders and weeding out fakes.
The new system builds upon existing techniques used to combat spam. Those techniques are designed to verify that an email actually came from the sender in question.
AP
