IT Security vendor Kaspersky Lab and email intelligence company Return Path announced today a new, collaborative initiative to combat international fraud including phishing attacks and other abuse targeting consumers and service providers. The companies have agreed on a framework to share threat data and security analytics to detect and thwart email abuse, protect the end-users from malware and spam, and enable mailbox providers to quickly identify and address fraud within their networks.

Under their global agreement, Kaspersky Lab will incorporate Return Path’sReputation Network Blacklist and Certified Whitelist into its spam detection analysis to improve the speed and accuracy of its suite of products, specifically their anti-spam detection. Each of these lists is updated in real-time to identify abusive and fraudulent sources of email, and to audit legitimate email senders that comply with mailbox providers’ best common practices, respectively. In exchange, Return Path will use the email abuse data provided by Kaspersky Lab to further improve its excellence in email stream analysis and enable its customers to respond faster to email abuse.
Return Path’s data networks now help to protect more than 2.4 billion mailboxes worldwide, representing nearly 70% of the estimated worldwide total. This global scope gives Kaspersky Lab’s and Return Path’s agreement the ability to make significant progress toward protecting end users from email-borne threats, and allowing mailbox providers to keep their networks free from abusive mail.

“Kaspersky Lab has a long-standing reputation of making the first and most relevant security discoveries. Our capacity to leverage the core security intelligence is further extended by Return Path’s expertise and unique position within the email ecosystem,” said Nikita Shvetsov, Deputy CTO at Kaspersky Lab. “Our coordinated intelligence can provide a safer experience not just for our clients and their customers, but also for email users around the world.”

Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path said, “As reports of high-profile security breaches become commonplace they highlight a need for collaborative solutions that expose fraud from multiple vantage points. Kaspersky Lab and Return Path are sharing what we see from increasingly sophisticated criminals to make it harder for abuse to go undetected, to reach users, and to pay off the risk of sending malicious and unwanted email. Joint efforts like this are vital as we work to maintain trust in the safety and fundamental value of the email channel.”