Google, Facebook team up to combat phishing scams

Google and Facebook have joined forces with a host of other tech companies to clamp down on email 'phishing' scams.

The internet giants, in collaboration with financial service providers, have devised a system for authenticating whether emails were sent from a legitimate source.

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) builds on existing techniques for identifying spam by questioning senders and companies about the messages they produce. DMARC also alerts the sender when their email address is used suspiciously.

Google's product manager Adam Dawes assured Gmail users that 15% of non-spam emails that they receive come from domains already protected by DMARC.

"With DMARC, large email senders can ensure that the email they send is being recognised by mail providers like Gmail as legitimate, as well as set policies so that mail providers can reject messages that try to spoof the senders' addresses," he wrote in a blog post.

DMARC was formed 18 months ago by internet firms Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, eBay, PayPal, LinkedIn, and the American Greetings Corp, in conjunction with financial service providers Bank of America Corp, Fidelity Investments, and security companies Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path and the Trusted Domain Project.

DMARC has now been opened up to all companies which use email or provide email services.

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