Phishing still on the increase

The growing threat of phishing attacks, which tempt unwary individuals into revealing personal information to scammers posing as legitimate firms, can be beaten by a combination of education and technology.

According to a new White Paper, Anti-Phishing: Best Practices for Institutions and Consumers, education of users and automatic blocks on the sending of sensitive information are key.

"We've seen staggering growth in phishing over the last few months," said Robin Matlock, vice president of product marketing for McAfee, the security firm which commissioned the research.

"There has been some success with user education, but anti-spam technology and better content filtering are also needed. Hackers go for the lowest hanging fruit so take some precautions and you'll be a lot safer."

McAfee's research found that the increasing sophistication of phoney web pages and better social engineering in initial emails has improved the success rate of attacks. It estimates that between one and 20 per cent of scams actually succeed.

A series of phishing scams has forced UK banks to warn their customers about the threat.

"Many banks are looking at whether they need to roll out strong authentication to all users in the light of phishing attacks," said Chris Potter, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"But the cost and complexity of such systems has always been the barrier to this. If anyone can provide a simple and effective form of authentication the internet banking community would pick it up."

According to figures released by the Anti-Phishing Working Group phishing attacks in 2004 are rising by 52 per cent per month, amounting to 5.7 attacks a day. Finance, retail and ISP customers are primary targets.

See also:

MasterCard to combat phishing and ID theft

Credit card giant uses NameProtect technology to detect online scams in real time  22 Jun 2004

Bugwatch: The future of phishing

New tactics are needed in the fight against ever-evolving phishing scams  29 Apr 2004

Phishers using smarter hooks

Fraud attempts grow with Trojans, keystroke loggers and stolen screenshots  20 Apr 2004

Security

The latest wave of cyber-crimes and acts of vandalism have demonstrated once again that many systems are still vulnerable to attack.  15 Apr 2004

Bugwatch: Foiling phishers

Formulating an effective anti-phishing strategy is vital  07 Apr 2004

Online phishing uses new bait

One click sends unwary users to fake websites  06 Apr 2004

Try avoiding, not eliminating, spam

Bill Gates is on a mission to rid the world of spam, but the effectiveness of his methods is in doubt.  18 Mar 2004

Fake escrow sites on the rise

Take basic precautions and you won't get fooled, advise online watchdogs  18 Mar 2004

Fraud and phishing attacks soar

Action group issues warning as incidents rise 52 per cent from December to January  18 Feb 2004

Phishers to target ISP customers next

Law enforcement agencies issue warning  06 Feb 2004

Microsoft takes action on phishing

Flaws allowing clone website attacks have been fixed, says Redmond giant  04 Feb 2004

Barclays is the latest caught by 'phishing'

Microsoft still not released patch for IE  14 Jan 2004

Bugwatch: In cyberspace, nobody knows you're a phish

The latest social engineering scam uses phoney websites to lure unsuspecting users into divulging personal information  12 Nov 2003

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!