Yahoo! promised, back in June, to be the first ISP to implement Domain Key checking on emails to protect their users. PayPal and eBay have announced in conjunction with Yahoo! that all Yahoo! Mail users will be protected from spoofs.
Domain Keys provide a unique way to verify the authenticity of email messages to determine if messages are real. The collaborative effort between Yahoo!, eBay and PayPal will result in the blocking of unauthenticated email, reducing the volume of spoofs for Yahoo! Mail users and reducing the risk that they’ll be tricked by fraudulent emails. If the user doesn’t receive the spoof email it becomes that much harder for a phisher to hack into their account.
John Kremer, Vice President of Yahoo! Mail said “By reducing the risk of phishing scams, Yahoo! Mail now offers a much safer Web mail service for eBay and PayPal users, and this protection will benefit the larger Yahoo! Mail community as well”
Other ISP’s should follow suit and implement Domain Keys technology in the near future. In the mean time Michael Barrett, PayPal’s Chief Information Security Officer has some tips on how to identify phishing emails and stay safe online.
