Spams and Scams
Phishing Websites
 Phishing is used to entice Internet users
to supply personal or identity information. There are about 8 million Phishing attempts
each day, and the attempts are increasing.
A survey commissioned by VeriSign, revealed that 88 percent of Web users are at
risk from online fraud because they cannot identify the different forms of Phishing
currently taking place.
Cyber criminals are becoming adept at mimicking legitimate Web sites. It is important
to verify suspicious of generic greetings instead of being personalised, urgent
calls-to-action, account status threats, requests for personal information, and
fake domain names/links.
Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail have been targeted as part of industry-wide
phishing schemes. More than 30,000 names and passwords from e-mail providers, including
Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other service providers were posted online.
The Phishing Schemes:
- Spear Phishing: Spear Phishing uses specific targeting. The targets may be
the customers of a bank or organisation, and especially senior executives.
- Business Services Phishing: The targeting may be services such as Yahoo!
or Google AdWords. Customers are sent emails alerting them that their accounts required
updating.
- Phishing that Plays on Economic Fears: Phishing emails may look like they
are coming from a financial institution.
- Blended Phishing/Malware Threats: Some attacks combine Phishing with malware
for a blended attack model. By clicking on the link inside a Phishing e-card, the
user is taken to a spoofed Website which downloads a Trojan to the victim's computer.
 So, unless you are absolutely sure that you know the
sender, beware of clicking an address of a Website in an Email. The Website may
not be genuine. The Phishing Website is usually an exact replica – so it may be
impossible to tell the difference between a legitimate Website and a Phishing Website.
For a Secure Web site, look for the following:
- SSL: The https://
protocol is the world standard for Web security. It is used to encrypt and protect
information transmitted over the Web. While some Phishing sites do have a secured
Web address, many do not.
- The Padlock Icon: This icon must appear in the actual browser itself and
not inside the content of the page.
- The Web address: A Phishing site will have an unknown domain, but will use
a well known brand in some other part of the Web address.
- Green address bar: When this appears in the Browser, the site has been authenticated.
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