American Company Fights Card Phishing. Greeting Card, That Is.

A new technology to fend off greeting card phishing is reportedly being put in place by service provider American Greetings in collaboration with security outlet Agari. The technology is dubbed DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) and will add a layer of protection for users who send and receive electronic greeting cards.

On the technical side, DMARC is a verification system that can tell whether the greeting card that just landed in your inbox is actually what it says it is or is yet another piece of malware that will likely turn your PC into a zombie.

The initiative spans beyond usage in greeting card services: companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL are already feeding DMARC with information about known phishing operations and compromised e-mail addresses.

“Our goal is to instill confidence with each email we send, so every user can proceed with complete assurance of the integrity and authenticity of the AG Interactive brand,” said Gary Von Hoch, vice president of web operations and IT for American Greetings Interactive.

This initiative is, however, a little late to the party, as greeting-card spam bundled with malware has been on a steep decline in the past two years, a direct consequence of the dismantling of the notorious Storm botnet.