OpenDNS Announces Community Anti-Phishing Web Site

October 2, 2006; 08:18 AM
OpenDNS, a DNS provider that makes the Internet safer, faster and smarter for you and everyone using your network, today unveiled PhishTank (www.phishtank.com), a free, consumer-friendly community Web site where anyone can submit, verify, track and share phishing data. It's like a neighborhood watch for the Internet.

Phishing is a fraudulent attempt, usually made through e-mail, to steal personally identifiable information. The October launch of PhishTank coincides with National Cyber Security Awareness Month, an annual observance intended to shed light on Internet crime and educate Internet users about cyber safety and crime prevention.

The PhishTank community site 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. Unlike other anti-phishing groups, 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.

Who: PhishTank is operated by OpenDNS.

What: PhishTank is a free-to-use, community Web site that functions as a collaborative clearing house for phishing data.

When: To coincide with National Cyber Security Awareness Month, the Web site is live as of October 2, 2006.

Why: Phishing is a crime that plagues all Internet users. Fighting it needs to be a community effort.

About OpenDNS

OpenDNS makes the Internet safer, faster and smarter. Based out of 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.

Allison Rhodes, Community Manager, 415.344.3150