Well, in computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details. eBay, PayPal and online banks are common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant mesageing.
Cases of phishing attempts are on the rise! Social networking sites are also a target of phishing, since the personal details in such sites can be used in identity theft. In late 2006, a computer worm took over pages on MySpace and altered links to direct surfers to websites designed to steal login details. Experiments sho a success rate of over 70% for ohishing attacks on social networks.
Phishing techniques
1) Link manipulation - This may be a link in an email, directing users to a spoofed website.
2) Filter evasion - Some phishers use images instead of text to make it harder for anti-phishing filters to detect text commonly used in phishing emails.
(Don't try these at home!)
Damage caused by phishing
It is estimated that between May 2004, and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in the U.S. suffered losses caused by ohishing, totaling approximately $929 million.
Anti-phishing software
Consisting computer programs that attempt to identify phishing content contained in websites and e-mail. It is often integrated with web browers and email clints as a toolbar that displays the real domain name for the website the viewer is visiting.
List of anti-phishing programs:
1)Firefix 2.0
2) Opera 9.1
3) Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer 7
My Personal Experience
I once received an email in my inbox and it said something along the lines of "the sender's father left him with one million dollars in his bank account, but the sender does not have a bank account, so he wants to put the money in my bank account, so I should give him my bank account number".
The email was written in good english and was quite fun to read! :-P
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
1 comment:
oo.. i love fishing..
haha..
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