phishing

Phishing is the illegal practice of sending out e-mail messages (spam) that appear to come from a financial institution and which seek to trick people into handing over account login information.

Phishing attacks begin with spammed emails that direct people to another website that looks like that of the bank or financial institution the email purports to have come from. When the user responds, the hackers pass this information back to the bank but they now know how to mimic the real user and can then use this information to trick the bank by using a users real login and password to gain access to an account. Anyone handing over details by logging into the phishing attack site will find their real accounts rapidly emptied.

Phishing is enabled by emails inherent weaknesses and ability to send anonymously.

Blogs dealing with phising are commonly published by banks and financial services who have to combat phishing problems daily. The most secret security and protection techniques are not posted to blogs.

by Sendside Are you a writer, passionate about this or any other topic? Join Blogcritics!

Original Technorati articles tagged “phishing”

• in Blogging
  Blog Focus On The Twitter Phishing Scam
  Maybe this Blog Focus should have included the words “yet another” as in yet another Twitter phishing scam?
  by ebrage / on Oct 14, 2009

Latest blogosphere posts tagged “phishing”

• How To Avoid Getting Ripped Off This Christmas

  
  SayEducate — Authority: 127
  “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men” was the angelic declaration made two thousand years ago when Jesus was born. Unfortunately, not enough people have heeded that message of reconciliation between God and man, choosing to perpetuate one scam or another, more so during the Christmas season. At least it seems ...
  16 hours ago

• Patch Tuesday: Microsoft plugs IE drive-by download security holes

  
  Zero Day — Authority: 578
  The most serious issues affect the companys Internet Explorer browser, including the newest IE 8 on Windows 7.
  23 hours ago

• Russian Cybercrook Gets 18 Months for IRS E-Filing Scam

  
  Threat Level — Authority: 753
  A Russian man was sentenced to 18 months in prison Monday for a phishing attack that diverted $100,000 in U.S. tax refunds to bank accounts under his control. Maxim Maltsev, 24, of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, ran the caper while he was living in the sunnier climes of San Diego in 2006, according to court ...
  1 day ago

• Recent Study Shows Phishing on Facebook has Increased

  
  Community 2.0 — Authority: 121
  A recent study conducted by the internet security company Sophos has some shocking details as highlighted by this post on ReadWriteWeb. In the study Sophos created fake accounts to see how the majority of people acted towards friend requests and how much information is made publicly available by its users. Here are ...
  1 day ago

• FIFA World Cup Tickets Scams Available Now

  
  McAfee Avert Labs — Authority: 489
  We recently alerted our readers to spam campaigns using the H1N1 vaccination program to prompt recipients to open the mail. And we have frequently mentioned that crooks love to take advantage of news, disasters, and other events. Now that the final draw for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa next year has taken ...
  1 day ago

• Federal Reserve Bank Spam Scam

  
  Bill Mullins' Weblog - Tech Thoughts — Authority: 138
  No, I’m not referring to the U.S. Federal Reserve as a scam, although there are more than a few, it seems, who think just that. Instead, I’m referring to the latest cybercriminal phishing scam which uses a phony “warning”, purportedly from the Federal Reserve Bank, which warns against – are you ready for ...
  1 day ago

• Social Network and Banking Scams Are on the Rise, Says Cisco (PC World)

  
  Need Firewall — Authority: 150
  PC World - What do phishing, instant messaging malware, DDoS attacks and 419 scams have in common? Read the rest here: (PC World)"> (PC World)">Social Network and Banking Scams Are on the Rise, Says Cisco (PC World)
  1 day ago

• Yahoo Hosting Customers’ Threatened by Attempts to Hijack Websites

  
  The Web Hosting News — Authority: 430
  ( The Hosting News ) – NEW YORK– The customer protection company for online businesses, Trusteer , today issued a security advisory that warns the customers of website hosting companies, including yahoo.com, against a new phishing attack aimed at stealing their content management system log-in credentials. ...
  1 day ago

• Yahoo Hosting Customers’ Threatened by Attempts to Hijack Websites

  
  Web Hosting Blog — Authority: 153
  (The Hosting News) – NEW YORK– The customer protection company for online businesses, Trusteer, today issued a security advisory that warns the customers of website hosting companies, including yahoo.com, against a new phishing attack aimed at stealing their content management system log-in credentials. The ...
  1 day ago

• China warns of Skype phishing attack (TechWorld)

  
  Adam Dicker | Domain Expert — Authority: 161
  A rare warning from China’s cyberthreat response group China’s cyberthreat response group has warned local Skype users about phishing scams being carried out through the chat program, in a show of ongoing efforts to counter phishing in the country. Originally posted here: China warns of Skype phishing attack ...
  1 day ago

• China warns of Skype phishing attack (TechWorld)

  
  Adam Dicker | Domain Expert — Authority: 161
  A rare warning from China’s cyberthreat response group China’s cyberthreat response group has warned local Skype users about phishing scams being carried out through the chat program, in a show of ongoing efforts to counter phishing in the country. Read the original: China warns of Skype phishing attack ...
  1 day ago

• Ruggedised botnets pushing out even more spam

  
  Spamzy — Authority: 109
  Future rogue ISP takedowns unlikely to bring reliefCybercrooks have adapted to the takedown of rogue ISPs by building more resilient botnets.…Offloading malware protection to the cloudContinued here: Ruggedised botnets pushing out even more spam a2a_linkname="Ruggedised botnets pushing out even more ...
  1 day ago

• Cyber Liability Insurance Mitigates Exposure

  
  Information Security Resources — Authority: 517
  By Laton McCartney , Editor at CIOZone Four or five years ago, insurance carriers selling cyber-liability insurance had difficulty giving the product away. “CIOs weren’t interested,” Drew Bartkiewicz, vice president of cyber and new media risk at The Hartford ( HIG ), tells CIOZone. “They’d ...
  1 day ago

• Vietnam Tops November Spam Report

  
  Information Security Resources — Authority: 517
  By Simon Heron , CISSP Internet Security Analyst Today’s news that a New Zealand national has been ordered to pay $15.5 million US dollars in fines due to his participation in an international spam network , highlights the seriousness with which authorities are starting to take malware production. But it ...
  1 day ago

• Hosting services under attack

  
  Top-Dollar-Website.com — Authority: 114
  Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk , Tuesday 8 December 2009 at 02:16:00 Phishing attack aims for site credentials A new phishing attack is targeting webmasters in an attempt to gain access to site credentials. According to security firm Trusteer, the attack targets cPanel, a popular management tool for web ...
  1 day ago

• Holiday Shopping Deadlines

  
  ThreatBlog — Authority: 588
  In just a couple of weeks you will be out of time to shop online and have that gift delivered in time for the holiday. I expect that there will be a surge in phishing attacks designed to take advantage of the panic factor. You get an email that says something to the effect that there is suspicious activity on your ...
  1 day ago

• PayPal Anti-Phishing – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

  
  ThreatBlog — Authority: 588
  So, my recent blog about PayPal calling its own email phishing seems to have received a bit of attention. The Good In response, I got an email from their Principal Security Engineer who asked me for a copy of the email that was incorrectly identified as a phish so he could use it to help identify the problem and ...
  2 days ago

• PayPal and Phishing Continued: Grooming Phish Victims

  
  ThreatBlog — Authority: 588
  In view of some of the discussion generated by Randys blog on PayPals "confession" of "phishing", its refreshing to see a straightforward summary of the issue from the estimable Larry Seltzer for PC Mag (see http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/12/paypal_admits_to_phishing_its.php?sms_ss=twitter ). PayPals ...
  2 days ago

• China Warns of Skype Phishing, Shuts Offending Domain (PC World via Yahoo! News)

  
  Adam Dicker | Domain Expert — Authority: 161
  China’s cyberthreat response group Monday warned local Skype users about phishing scams being carried out through the chat program, in a show of ongoing efforts to counter phishing in the country. See the original post: China Warns of Skype Phishing, Shuts Offending Domain (PC World via Yahoo! News)
  2 days ago

• Auto Whaler Spears Phishers

  
  SpywareGuide Greynets Blog — Authority: 114
  Proving conclusively that there is no honour among thieves (as if you needed proof), heres a website that goes hunting for so-called "big fish" - namely, phishers with a plentiful collection of logins stored on their phishing pages. The website itself is free of content, save for one small search bar at the top of ...
  2 days ago

Comments about phishing