Partnership helps banking firm combat online scams.

With Internet scams growing more sophisticated and ubiquitous each day, security has become one of the most important concerns for companies conducting commerce on the Web. As a result, Calabasas-based online banking provider Digital Insight Corp., has entered into a partnership with New York-based anti-fraud solutions provider, Cyota Inc.

Specifically, the agreement will help Digital Insight battle a type of Internet scheme known as "phishing." A typical "phish" occurs when a person receives an e-mail from a spammer purporting to be a bank or a credit union. The e-mail's content intends to fool the recipient into divulging sensitive banking and personal identification, allowing the spammer to steal one's identity.

According to Digital Insight's Director of Integration Engineering, Paul Witman, over the years "phish" scums have evolved and continue to represent a threat to the company's customers.

"It's a growing problem for our client base. The spammers started out saying that they were from Citibank, Bank of America and Washington Mutual because they could send out a number of e-mails and some number of people would have an account with those banks," Witman said. "Since the banks have educated their customers, the spammers have moved down-market, into more localized smaller institutions, such as local community banks and credit unions."

Digital Insight hopes that its new arrangement will help stymie many of these attacks before they happen, as well as allow the company to monitor and potentially help to apprehend the perpetrators of these criminal acts.

Witman maintained that the partnership with Cyota is just one of the steps that Digital Insight has been enacting to improve its clients' security.

"We're working with vendors to provide stronger authentication for consumers and bank administrators to make it harder for someone who steals identifies to make use of them," Witman said. "Most identify theft occurs from mailboxes and trash bins, and accordingly we're providing offline services to help customers."

John Kraft, an analyst with D.A. Davidson & Co. agrees that phishing scams are a dangerous threat for Digital Insight's clients, and believes that the partnership with Cyota will be an attractive offering for the company.

"Fraud and phishing are becoming a bigger deal and more and more banks are feeling the heat. Some of Digital's competitors have also gotten more active in anti-fraud as well," Kraft said. "It will help the company and it will bring some attention to the company. It will be nice for them to be able to offer that."

Though D.A. Davidson maintained a neutral rating on Digital Insight's stock, it has traded favorably in the past year, hovering in the mid $20 range, up from a 52-week low of $12.96, registered in October of last year.