Application security, Compliance Management, Privacy

Symantec opens phishing-reporting site to home users

Symantec's worldwide phishing-reporting network, previously restricted to member companies, will now be open to home consumers.

The site allows firms - and now individual users - to report and receive information on fraudulent websites.

Symantec also announced that it is adding the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a leading anti-fraud organization, to the Symantec Phish Report Network.

Vincent Weafer, senior director of security response for Symantec, told SCMagazine.com that Symantec is can validate phishing complaints it receives.

"We've been trying to expand the amount of people providing information in, so we're just basically expanding the intelligence," he said. We actually do some Q-and-A in the back-end, and we vent the URLs coming in for validation," he said. "We actually do have a means to try to (validate) and that's something that distinguishes us from other sites."

When consumers are targeted by a phishing email with a fraudulent address, they can now submit the malicious URL to the phish report network, which, if it confirms the link is fraudulent, will enter it into its blacklist. That information is then provided to other network members.

OpenDNS launched a site with a similar premise last month. PhishTank collects the input of home users on phishing sites, then posts the information.

During its first month of existence, PhishTank the greatest number of scams targeting eBay and its subsidiary, PayPal.

About 7,000 possible phishing scams were reported by PhishTank members in October, with over half verified by OpenDNS as phishing messages.

Click here to email Frank Washkuch Jr.

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