Antiphishing standard in the works from Google, Facebook, others

The 15 companies will be announcing on Monday DMARC.org, which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance--a system for verifying that e-mails are coming from legitimate companies and not imposters trying to trick people into clicking a phishing link. Basically, the system offers a common way for companies to authenticate their legitimate communications with customers.

Also in the DMARC working group are AOL, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, American Greetings, LinkedIn, and e-mail security providers Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path, and Trusted Domain Project.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and Agari announced in November that they were doing this authentication coordination for Facebook, YouSendIt, and a few dozen other e-commerce companies and social networks. Now the effort is being expanded to include more participants. The antiphishing collaboration has been going on for 18 months between various partners, DMARC members said.