AOL has started to develop a new initiative to protect its users against phishing. The company stated that it has to deal with 8 million daily phishing attempts and that from now on, it will try to identify the fraud schemes before they become a problem.

For this purpose, AOL has signed two partnership contracts with MarkMonitor and Cyveillance. The portal will try to monitor the newly registered sites and check if they are trying to simulate already existent ones. Aside from these measures, AOL will search the web for sites that have been specifically designed for phishing and will join forces with other Internet providers to shut them down.

AOL hopes that users will also get actively involved in its anti-phishing initiative; currently, the company is rigorously analyzing millions of dubious URLs sent by the portal's members. The sites identified as being phishing attempts will be blocked.

As part of the same action, the company will also extend its partnership with Cyota, in order to provide online security solutions for financial institutions.

Tatiana Platt, AOL Senior Vice President and Chief Trust Officer, said that phishing and identity thefts are serious issues and, because of that, AOL wants to protect its users as efficiently as possible against online displeasures they may encounter.

Aside from the e-mails' antivirus scanning, an increasing number of online service providers have started to take other security measures to protect the users against criminal activities.

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