PHISHING : a scam!!!

Phishing (fish´ing) (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely

claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the
user 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 to
update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social
security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already
has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s
information.

For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which

users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s
account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link
and 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 HTML code, the scam counted on people
being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay and
were subsequently going to eBay’s site to update their account information.
By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail
being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card
numbers 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 while
most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting. This can be the
act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established
legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user 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 to update personal information,
such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account
numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site,
however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.

How to Spot A Phishing Scam

At first glance, it may not be obvious to the recipients that what is in their
inbox is not a legitimate e-mail from a company with whom they do
business. The "From" field of the e-mail may have the .com address of the
company mentioned in the e-mail, and the clickable link may also appear to
be taking you to the company's Web site, but will in fact take you to a spoof
Web site. Looks can be deceiving, but with phishing scams the e-mail is
never from who is appears to be!
Phishing e-mails will contain some of these common elements: (view
screen capture above from Eudora)

1. The "From Field" appears to be from the legitimate company mentioned in

the 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 you
how, 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 from
the 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 the
inserted link to validate your information. In the image you will see that once
the hyperlink is highlighted, the bottom left of the screen shows the real Web
site address to which you will go. Note that the hyperlink does NOT point to
the legitimate Citibank Web site URL.

Who Is Behind the Phishes & Why

The people behind phishing e-mails are scam artists. They literally send out
millions of these scam e-mails in the hopes that even a few recipients will act
on them and provide their personal and financial information. Anyone with
an e-mail address is at risk of being phished. Any e-mail address that has
been made public on the Internet (posting in forums, newsgroups or on a
Web site) is more susceptible to phishing as the e-mail address can be saved
by spiders that search the Internet and grab as many e-mail addresses as
they can. This is why phishing is profitable for scammers; they can cheaply
and 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-mail
without 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 card
companies, an online retail store — basically from anywhere a person may
have registered for an account, and usually would have supplied financial
information when registering.

The golden rule to avoid being phished is to never ever click the links
within the text of the e-mail. Always delete the e-mail immediately. Once
you have deleted the e-mail then empty the trash box in your e-mail client as
well. This will prevent "accidental" clicks from happening as well. If, for some
really odd reason you have this nagging feeling that this could just possibly
be a legitimate e-mail and nothing can convince you otherwise, you still need
to adhere to the golden rule and not click the link in the message. For those
truly worried that an account may be in jeopardy if you do not verify your
information, you need to open your Web browser program of choice and type
the URL to the Web site in the address field of your browser and log on to the
Web site as you normally would (without going through the e-mail link as a
quick route). This will provide you with accurate information about your
account and allow you to completely avoid the possibility of landing on a
spoof 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 of
what 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 appears
to be from and take the time to notify them of the suspicious e-mail. Many
companies do want to know if their company name is being used to try and
scam people, and you'll find scam and spoof reporting links within some of
these Web sites. Additionally, you can report phishing to the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC), and depending on where you live, some local authorities
may also accept Internet phishing scam reports. Lastly, you can also send
details of a phishing scam to to the Anti-Phishing Working Group who is
building a repository/database of common scams to help inform people of
the risks.

The New Phish - Spear Phishing

As with all malicious code, once a small Did You Know...
percentage of the population starts to catch The word phishing comes from the
analogy that Internet scammers
on, the perpetrators find ways to make the
are using e-mail lures to fish for
attack a little different, and this case, make passwords and financial data from
the phish harder to net. The newest type of the sea of Internet users. The term
phishing scam is one that focuses on a single was coined in 1996 by hackers who
user or a department within an organization. were stealing AOL Internet
accounts by scamming passwords
The Phish appears to be legitimately
from unsuspecting AOL users. Since
addressed from someone within that hackers have a tendency to
company, in a position of trust, and request replacing "f" with "ph" the term
information such as login IDs and passwords. phishing was derived. –
Spear phishing scams will often appear to be
http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Int
from a company's own human resources or
technical support divisions and may ask employees to update their
username and passwords. Once hackers get this data they can gain entry
into secured networks. Another type of spear phishing attack will ask users
to 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 in

e-mails to entice people to share passwords or credit-card numbers. Recent
victims include Charlotte's Bank of America, Best Buy and eBay, where
people were directed to Web pages that looked nearly identical to the
companies' sites.

The term had its coming out when the FBI called phishing the "hottest, and
most troubling, new scam on the Internet." Likewise, it was mentioned that
Phishing means to steal your information by Charlotte Observer, July 25,
2003, then Kevin Pang said "'Phishers' widen their catch of Web identity
victims," 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 shut
down unless you confirm your billing information, do not reply or click
any 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 is
secure during transmission.
• If you are uncertain about the information, contact the company
through an address or telephone number you know to be genuine.
• If you unknowingly supplied personal or financial information, contact
your bank and credit card company immediately.
• Suspicious e-mail can be forwarded to uce@ftc.gov, and complaints
should be filed with the state attorney general's office or through the
FTC at www.ftc.gov.
Earliest Citation:
It used to be that you could make a fake account on AOL so long as you had
a credit card generator. However, AOL became smart. Now they verify every
card with a bank after it is typed in. Does anyone know of a way to get an
account other than phishing? —mk590, "AOL for free?," alt.2600, January
28, 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. The
sender was somebody called 'VLA Carol.'
'Hi,' the message said. 'I am with the Virtual Leader Academy (VLA). Recently
one of our OverHead contacts has discovered an error in the stratus system
and the information is unrecoverable. Due to this fact, we will need you to
reply with your current logon password so that we may update our files and
make the needed changes. Thank you for your cooperation.' OverHead
contacts? Stratus system? Yeah, right.
While this particular scam was pretty transparent, it was the second such
solicitation I've received on AOL in as many months. ... The scam is called
'phishing' — as in fishing for your password, but spelled differently — said
Tatiana Gau, vice president of integrity assurance for the online service.
—Ed Stansel, "Don't get caught by online 'phishers' angling for account
information," Florida Times-Union, March 16, 1997

Notes:
The term phishing comes from the fact that Internet scammers are using
increasingly sophisticated lures as they "fish" for users' financial information
and password data. The most common ploy is to copy the Web page code
from a major site — such as AOL — and use that code to set up a replica
page 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 is
submitted, it sends the data to the scammer while leaving the user on the
company's site so they don't suspect a thing.

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

He decides to check out London first. He chooses a certain pay phone

located in Waterloo Station. This particular pay phone is popular with the
phone-phreaks network because there are usually people walking by at all
hours 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-mail
one day and find a message from your bank. You've gotten e-mail from them
before, but this one seems suspicious, especially since it threatens to close
your account if you don't reply immediately. What do you do?

This message and others like it are examples of phishing, a method of

online identity theft. In addition to stealing personal and financial data,
phishers can infect computers with viruses and convince people to
participate 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. These
messages look authentic and attempt to get victims to reveal their personal
information. But e-mail messages are only one small piece of a phishing
scam.