OpenDNS founder David Ulevitch has launched the free PhishTank.com, a service for fighting email fraud that seeks input from Internet users. Anyone will be able to submit suspect URLs for others to examine, verify, track, vote on and share their input.
For webmasters, PhishTank provides an open API for developers and researchers to integrate anti-phishing data into their applications at no charge.
PhishTank.com utilizes a weighted voting system to track submitted URLs. Based on the voting margin, the website is either dropped from the site or classified as a phishing attempt.
To prevent scammers from taking over the system, votes are weighed based on how long, how often and how accurate a user rates other entries. At press time, more than 500 messages have been verified as scams, with slightly more than 900 URLs submitted.
“Taking on phishing is no small task,” OpenDNS’ Community and PR Manager Alison Rhodes wrote on the PhishTank.com blog. “And it’s certainly something we can’t do alone. The only way this site will work is if you submit suspected phishing sites, and tell your friends and family to do the same. And when you have some time to spare, stop by and verify some phishes for the community.
“We think you’ll do all of this, because we believe you want to end phishing, too. Supporting PhishTank doesn’t just help OpenDNS, it allows any developer building an application to incorporate anti-phishing data into their tools.”
While Phish Tank isn’t the first phishing watchdog site that’s seeking community input, Ulevitch said it’s the first to offer a completely transparent database.