Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals Everywhere.
Web Security is an issue of importance to Web professionals and to the customers we serve. To that end, I’d like to cover the topic of Web security or more specifically “Phishing” and some stats that I just learned about. For today’s podcast, I’d like to explain what exactly Phishing is, just how big of an issue this really is and who monitors such activity.
According to Wikipedia, 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. 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.
Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.
According to Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), the number of crimeware-spreading sites infecting PCs with password-stealing crimeware reached an all time high of 31,173 in December, and 827% increase from January 2008.
For the complete story check out today’s two minute podcast on the Web Professional Minute website.
Today’s minute is sponsored by Web Design World 2009 taking place July 20-22, 2009 in Seattle, WA July These days, everyone’s doing more with less. That’s why Web Design World Seattle is the design conference for the here and now. No fluff or filler, just great speakers and practical topics. CSS and markup that work. Smart user-experience and social-networking strategies. Power tips for Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.
Check out our lineup and sign up today!
A complete transcript will be available in twenty four hours.