Although this is an older post, we thought this more recent set of information might be helpful to readers. We found this identity theft 101 article to be useful.
Greetings Web professionals everywhere! The topic for today’s podcast is Phising, Cyber Crime, the ugly truth and what we need to know and do about it. To assist us in better understanding the size and the scope of the problem, I reached out by telephone to Laura Mather, PhD Founder and VP of Product Marketing Silver Tail Systems an anti fraud company and a volunteer for the anti phising working group APWG.
In this three minute podcast, Dr. Mather, a former EBay executive provides key insights to how prevalent the issue has become, what we need to know as Web professionals and anti phishing educational resources we can share with our customers. She also ask that we participate with feedback as well.
According to Wikipedia, Phishing in the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.
A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term “phishing” was made in 1996. The term is a variant of fishing. probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to baits used to “catch” financial information and passwords.
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