Yahoo, ebay and Paypal to fight against Phishing

Yahoo Inc, is working with auction leader eBay Inc and its PayPal payments unit to block fake e-mails to users purporting to be from eBay and PayPal, hoping to spur on an industry that has been slow to fight the scourge of so-called phishing attacks.

Phishers use forged e-mail messages that purport to come from brand name services like eBay or PayPal to dupe computer users into clicking on Web links that lead to phony Web sites. Unsuspecting consumers may then enter personal or account information and passwords under false pretenses. Phishers typically use this information for fraud or theft.

To prevent phishing messages from reaching users of Yahoo Mail, the companies are now using Yahoo's Domain Keys technology in the U.S. to block e-mail messages that claim to come from eBay or PayPal but really originate elsewhere. Yahoo expects to make the system available globally in the next few weeks.

Over the past decade, phishing has been clogging the inboxes of e-mail users worldwide with ever more sophisticated attempts to fool users into clicking on fraudulent sites or giving up personal financial details to commit fraud.