Symantec Corp., well known for its consumer anti-virus products, has introduced an anti-phishing service for financial institutions.
The service "will actually block fraudulent e-mails from reaching consumers" at nine major Internet service providers, said Kim Legelis, the company's director of financial services products.
With phishing scams, criminals create fake e-mails that purport to be legitimate communications from a bank. The e-mails direct customers to bogus Web sites that ask them to reveal personal information such as bank account numbers and passwords.
This threat has become more common as con artists, often in developing regions of the world, have realized that they can use such data to drain American bank accounts from far beyond the reach of U. S. law enforcement agencies.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry trade group that monitors such attacks, tracked more than 1,400 separate phishing incidents in June, the last month for which statistics are available. The group also said the number of these attacks has been increasing, on average, by 52% per month.
Like some of its competitors, Symantec Online Fraud Management is using its e-mail spam detectors to spot fake messages. The clues could include the use of bank logos or commonly used phrases asking customers to visit another Web site.
Like some other services, Symantec will notify banks of these clues so that further action, such as protecting compromised accounts and tracking down the culprits, can be taken, Ms. Legelis said.
Unlike competitors' service, Symantec's will keep these e-mails from reaching consumers who use the ISPs at which the company has installed filters.
