Phishing new

8/7/2019 Phishing new

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PHISHING : a scam!!!

Phishing (fishing) (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falselyclaiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam theuser into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked toupdate personal information, such as passwords and credit card, socialsecurity, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization alreadyhas. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the usersinformation.

For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in whichusers received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the usersaccount was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided linkand updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had.Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate

organizations site by mimicking the HTMLcode, the scam counted on peoplebeing tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay andwere subsequently going to eBays site to update their account information.By spamming large groups of people, the phisher counted on the e-mailbeing read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit cardnumbers with eBay legitimately.

Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on"fishing," the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that whilemost will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting. This can be theact of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established

legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrenderingprivate information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs theuser to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information,such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank accountnumbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site,however, is bogus and set up only to steal the users information.

How to Spot A Phishing ScamAt first glance, it may not be obvious to the recipients that what is in theirinbox is not a legitimate e-mail from a company with whom they dobusiness. The "From" field of the e-mail may have the .com address of thecompany mentioned in the e-mail, and the clickable link may also appear tobe taking you to the company's Web site, but will in fact take you to a spoofWeb site. Looks can be deceiving, but with phishing scams the e-mail isnever from who is appears to be!
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/hyperlink.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/HTML.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/code.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/HTML.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/code.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/hyperlink.html


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Phishing e-mails will contain some of these common elements: (viewscreen capture above from Eudora)

1.The "From Field" appears to be from the legitimate company mentioned inthe e-mail. It is important to note, however, that it is very simple to change

the "from" information in any e-mail client. While we're not going to tell youhow, rest assured it can be done in a matter of seconds!2. The e-mail will usually contain logos or images that have been taken fromthe Web site of the company mentioned in the scam e-mail.3.The e-mail will contain a clickable link with text suggesting you use theinserted link to validate your information. In the image you will see that oncethe hyperlink is highlighted, the bottom left of the screen shows the real Website address to which you will go. Note that the hyperlink does NOT point tothe legitimate Citibank Web site URL.

Who Is Behind the Phishes & Why

The people behind phishing e-mails are scam artists. They literally send outmillions of these scam e-mails in the hopes that even a few recipients will acton them and provide their personal and financial information. Anyone withan e-mail address is at risk of being phished. Any e-mail address that hasbeen made public on the Internet (posting in forums, newsgroups or on aWeb site) is more susceptible to phishing as the e-mail address can be savedby spiders that search the Internet and grab as many e-mail addresses asthey can. This is why phishing is profitable for scammers; they can cheaplyand easily access millions of valid e-mail addresses to send these scams to.

Common (Phish) Sense

After reading this far, we hope that you will be able to spot a phishing e-mailwithout too much difficulty. The e-mail represented above is just a sample;phishing e-mails can appear to be from any bank, PayPal, eBay, credit cardcompanies, an online retail store basically from anywhere a person mayhave registered for an account, and usually would have supplied financialinformation when registering.

The golden rule to avoid being phishedis to never ever click the linkswithin the text of the e-mail. Always delete the e-mail immediately. Onceyou have deleted the e-mail then empty the trash box in your e-mail client aswell. This will prevent "accidental" clicks from happening as well. If, for some

really odd reason you have this nagging feeling that this could just possiblybe a legitimate e-mail and nothing can convince you otherwise, you still needto adhere to the golden rule and not click the link in the message. For thosetruly worried that an account may be in jeopardy if you do not verify yourinformation, you need to open your Web browser program of choice and typethe URL to the Web site in the address field of your browser and log on to theWeb site as you normally would (without going through the e-mail link as aquick route). This will provide you with accurate information about your


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Did You Know...The word phishing comes from theanalogy that Internet scammersare using e-mail lures to fish forpasswords and financial data fromthe sea of Internet users. The termwas coined in 1996 by hackers whowere stealing AOL Internetaccounts by scamming passwordsfrom unsuspecting AOL users. Sincehackers have a tendency toreplacing "f" with "ph" the term

phishing was derived.

htt : www.webo edia.com DidYouKnow Int

account and allow you to completely avoid the possibility of landing on aspoof Web site and giving your information to someone you shouldn't.

Now that you know how to avoid being phished, there is still the question ofwhat to do about phishing e-mails should you be a recipient of them. First of

all, you can visit the Web site of the company from whom the e-mail appearsto be from and take the time to notify them of the suspicious e-mail. Manycompanies do want to know if their company name is being used to try andscam people, and you'll find scam and spoof reporting links within some ofthese Web sites. Additionally, you can report phishing to the Federal TradeCommission (FTC), and depending on where you live, some local authoritiesmay also accept Internet phishing scam reports. Lastly, you can also senddetails of a phishing scam to to the Anti-Phishing Working Group who isbuilding a repository/database of common scams to help inform people ofthe risks.

The New Phish - Spear PhishingAs with all malicious code, once a smallpercentage of the population starts to catchon, the perpetrators find ways to make theattack a little different, and this case, makethe phish harder to net. The newest type ofphishing scam is one that focuses on a singleuser or a department within an organization.The Phish appears to be legitimatelyaddressed from someone within thatcompany, in a position of trust, and request

information such as login IDs and passwords.Spear phishing scams will often appear to befrom a company's own human resources ortechnical support divisions and may ask employees to update theirusername and passwords. Once hackers get this data they can gain entryinto secured networks. Another type of spear phishing attack will ask usersto click on a link, which deploys spyware that can steal data. -http://www.wordspy.com/words/phishing.asp

Phishing is the term coined by hackers who imitate legitimate companies ine-mails to entice people to share passwords or credit-card numbers. Recent

victims include Charlotte's Bank of America, Best Buy and eBay, wherepeople were directed to Web pages that looked nearly identical to thecompanies' sites.

The term had its coming out when the FBI called phishing the "hottest, andmost troubling, new scam on the Internet." Likewise, it was mentioned thatPhishing means to steal your information by Charlotte Observer, July 25,


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2003, then Kevin Pang said "'Phishers' widen their catch of Web identityvictims," Chicago Tribune, July 29, 2003

Tips on how to avoid the Internet scam known as phishing.

If you receive an unexpected e-mail saying your account will be shutdown unless you confirm your billing information, do not reply or clickany links in the e-mail body.

Before submitting financial information through a Web site, look for the"lock" icon on the browser's status bar. It means your information issecure during transmission.

If you are uncertain about the information, contact the companythrough an address or telephone number you know to be genuine.

If you unknowingly supplied personal or financial information, contactyour bank and credit card company immediately.

Suspicious e-mail can be forwarded to [email protected], and complaints

should be filed with the state attorney general's office or through theFTC at www.ftc.gov.

Earliest Citation:It used to be that you could make a fake account on AOL so long as you hada credit card generator. However, AOL became smart. Now they verify everycard with a bank after it is typed in. Does anyone know of a way to get anaccount other than phishing? mk590, "AOL for free?," alt.2600, January28, 1996

Earliest Media Citation:'Brrrrring!' The musical tone of an instant message on America Online

sounded through my PC's speakers. The message box popped up. Thesender was somebody called 'VLA Carol.''Hi,' the message said. 'I am with the Virtual Leader Academy (VLA). Recentlyone of our OverHead contacts has discovered an error in the stratus systemand the information is unrecoverable. Due to this fact, we will need you toreply with your current logon password so that we may update our files andmake the needed changes. Thank you for your cooperation.' OverHeadcontacts? Stratus system? Yeah, right.While this particular scam was pretty transparent, it was the second suchsolicitation I've received on AOL in as many months. ... The scam is called'phishing' as in fishing for your password, but spelled differently saidTatiana Gau, vice president of integrity assurance for the online service.Ed Stansel, "Don't get caught by online 'phishers' angling for accountinformation," Florida Times-Union, March 16, 1997

Notes:


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The term phishing comes from the fact that Internet scammers are usingincreasingly sophisticated lures as they "fish" for users' financial informationand password data. The most common ploy is to copy the Web page codefrom a major site such as AOL and use that code to set up a replicapage that appears to be part of the company's site. (This is why phishing is

also called brand spoofing.) A fake e-mail is sent out with a link to this page,which solicits the user's credit card data or password. When the form issubmitted, it sends the data to the scammer while leaving the user on thecompany's site so they don't suspect a thing.

Hackers have an endearing tendency to change the letter "f" to "ph," andphishing is but one example. The f-to-ph transformation is not new amonghackers, either. It first appeared in the late 1960s among telephone systemhackers, who called themselves phone phreaks. Here's the earliest citation ofthe word phreak:

He decides to check out London first. He chooses a certain pay phonelocated in Waterloo Station. This particular pay phone is popular with thephone-phreaks network because there are usually people walking by at allhours who will pick it up and talk for a while. ...

How Phishing Works

According to Wilson, Phishing works this way: Suppose you check your e-mailone day and find a message from your bank. You've gotten e-mail from thembefore, but this one seems suspicious, especially since it threatens to closeyour account if you don't reply immediately. What do you do?

This message and others like it are examples ofphishing, a method ofonline identity theft. In addition to stealing personal and financial data,phishers can infect computers with viruses and convince people toparticipate unwittingly in money laundering.

Most people associate phishing with e-mail messages that spoof, or mimic,banks, credit card companies or other business like Amazon and eBay. Thesemessages look authentic and attempt to get victims to reveal their personalinformation. But e-mail messages are only one small piece of a phishingscam.


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