[pchelpers] Article:Be Gone Phishing

Posted on: Saturday, 29 December 2007, 03:00 CST

By DeBruyne, Richard Posten, Denis 

Just when you think you're too smart to get taken by net fraud, the next
great generation of attacks is on its way The incidence of
Internet-based fraud is not new but it is rising at an ever- increasing
rate. One such scam plaguing the world of e-business and technology is
phishing. Despite its cute name, it is a mean- spirited racket
perpetrated by international rings of organized criminals and is a
multibillion-dollar crime that continues to grow despite awareness and
attempts to stop it.

It is a type of e-mail that looks like it is from a legitimate supplier,
asking the user to update personal and financial information. In fact it
is an attempt to get someone's personal information that can then be
used to access a bank account, credit cards or impersonate that person
for other purposes. 

It is easy to think the people caught up in these nets must be a bit
short of a full deck. Would anyone honestly believe he or she has won a
South African lottery or inherited millions from a long- lost or unknown
relative? Who in their right mind would click on those
spelling-error-filled links and follow up by providing bank account
numbers, credit card numbers, pin numbers and personal information these
scams are asking for? But phishing attacks are still arriving by e-mail,
in many varieties. 

Although phishing has been around for more than a decade, today it is
more complicated. Criminals have taken it to the next level by using
advanced technology. Their goal is to circumvent the mistrust of online
activity by aligning scams to our high standards and expectations. 

Attractive phish 

If you think you can spot a fake website, you're deluding yourself. Fake
websites have become technically proficient and ascetically correct. It
may be virtually impossible for you to distinguish a real site from a
fake one. Sophisticated software tools, such as the Rock Phish Kit,
allow criminals to exactly duplicate the look and feel of legitimate
websites with very little effort. 

A few tweaks to the original code provide a site that has every function
of the original and can even pass through to the original site. That
way, when you want to look up the branch locations for your bank, the
information is there. However, a few key functions of the fake site will
have been altered to capture someone's financial information and ship it
off to the criminal to compromise. 

More here:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1197751/be_gone_phishing/index.html?source=r_technology
-- 
John Durham
Site http://modecideas.com
Server hosted on Ubuntu 4.10
Good advice is like good paint. It only works when applied.



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