Yahoo! Mail Adds OpenDNS Phishing Protection

By Derek Iwasiuk
DomainInformer.com
April 19, 2007

OpenDNS announced today that Yahoo! Mail, the world's No. 1 Web mail service, is leading the anti-phishing fight by using fraud protection powered by PhishTank.com as a component of its program to protect email users from malicious scam artists. PhishTank.com is a community Web site operated by OpenDNS where anyone can submit, track and share phishing information.

Phishing is a fraudulent attempt, usually made through e-mail, to steal your personal information. Phishing e-mails appear to come from a well-known organization and ask for personally identifying information -- such as credit card number, social security number, account number or password.

PhishTank.com uses the wisdom of the crowds to gather information about phishing Web sites and makes all data it accumulates openly and freely available to any individual or organization that wishes to use it to help fight phishing.

According to PhishTank.com, in the month of March 2007 alone there were more than 11,000 unique suspected phishing scams, each one representing potentially devastating financial losses for all recipients. Phishing has fast become a multi-million dollar industry for cyber thieves and Yahoo! Mail's decision to use PhishTank.com is part of its ongoing commitment to fight this Internet crime and keep its customers safe with the latest technologies.

"By combining the data received from PhishTank.com with other anti-phishing resources, we are currently protecting Yahoo! Mail users from nearly 14 million phishing email messages per day. Listening to the community, developing enhanced technologies and collaborating with security leaders continue to be priorities as we work to protect email users from the industry-wide problem of phishing," said Miles Libbey, Yahoo! anti-spam product manager.

"OpenDNS is thrilled Yahoo! Mail has chosen phishing protection powered by PhishTank," said David Ulevitch, CEO of OpenDNS. "PhishTank is firmly rooted in the belief that the fight against phishing is a collaborative effort and we encourage other organizations to follow Yahoo! Mail's lead."

Launched in October 2006 to coincide with National Cyber Security Awareness Month, PhishTank employs a sophisticated voting system that requires the community to vote "phish" or "not phish," reducing the possibility of false positives and improving the overall breadth and coverage of the phishing data. PhishTank makes all phishing data it accumulates public and available via programmable APIs, which allow other software developers to incorporate the anti-phishing data into their tools. The open access is intended to encourage the sharing of information and increase the chance of eliminating phishing all together. For more information about PhishTank, please visit: www.phishtank.com

OpenDNS makes the Internet safer, faster, smarter and more reliable. Based in San Francisco, the company operates a large distributed network that powers a new kind of recursive DNS (Domain Name System) service that provides all Internet users increased security, reliability and performance. OpenDNS is thoroughly committed to building and operating the best DNS platform in the world and to improving the Internet. For more information about OpenDNS, please visit: www.opendns.com