UGN UGN Phishing & Online Crime Reports

War on Phishing and Online Crime


New twists as attacks get worse... new companies targeted

Spamhaus: Yahoo major phishing site host

Spamhaus has accused Yahoo of failing in the fight against online fraud, and Microsoft has admitted there is room for improvement. Yahoo is playing host to thousands of phishing sites and doesn't have sufficiently well-trained staff to address the problem of online fraud, according to a leading anti-spam and security organization on Tuesday.
      Richard Cox, chief information officer of Spamhaus, told an audience of politicians, security experts and law enforcement officials that Yahoo has just under 5,000 domains hosted and registered with the words 'bank', 'eBay' and 'PayPal' within the domain names. Tom Espiner, Special to CNET News.com

Yahoo to seek damages for 'phishing'

. . . in October at the earliest, will be the first damages suit in Japan by an Internet auction site operator over organized fraud known as "phishing," the sources . . . The Japan Times - Japan

PhishTank Aims to Blow Scammers Out of the Water

. . . San Francisco-based OpenDNS, a group that provides an alternative DNS system that is allegedly faster than ordinary DNS and also blocks access to phishing sites... Here's how to switch to OpenDNS Windows & Net Magazine - Cleveland,OH, USA

We hate to say we told you so about computer security, but...

Symantec found more than 157,000 new kinds of "phishing" messages - fraudulent e-mail designed to look authentic - in the first half of this year, up more than 80 percent from the last half of 2005. St. Louis Post-Dispatch - MO, United States

OpenDNS Announces Community Anti-Phishing Web Site

PhishTank shines light on the dark waters of the Internet . . . OpenDNS (www.opendns.com), a DNS provider has unveiled PhishTank (www.phishtank.com), a free, consumer-friendly community Web site where anyone can submit, verify, track and share phishing data. It's like a neighborhood watch for the Internet. PR Web (press release) - Ferndale,WA, USA

Credit union phishing messages persist

"We've been seeing a spike in localized phishing scams over the past couple months," said Hoala Greevy, CEO of the Honolulu e-mail filtering company Pau Spam. He said his company has stopped phishing attacks purporting to come from 24 different credit unions in the past three days alone. Bizjournals.com - Charlotte,NC, USA

Study: Microsoft Anti-Phishing Uses Best Bait

Microsoft's maiden entry into the anti-phishing space outperforms similar technologies offered by more established security applications providers, according to a new report commissioned by the software company and conducted by researchers 3Sharp. eWeek - New York, NY

UK banks outed on security

methods that criminals could easily use to send phishing emails to users via the banks' sites, without banks ever being aware of any attack. Heise claims it was able to prove that the web site security of NatWest, USB, Cahoot, Bank of Scotland, Bank of Ireland, First Direct and Link could be bypassed. IT PRO - London, UK

SonicWall launches Email Security 400 for SMBs

SonicWall Email Security is a self running, self-updating solution, delivering powerful protection against spam, virus and phishing attacks in addition to preventing confidential information leaks and violation of internal e-mail policy or regulatory compliance laws. SonicWall Email Security 400 solution provides powerful protection without complexity. CRN-India - New Mumbai, India

IE 7.0 tops study of anti-phishing tools

Internet Explorer 7.0ßs anti-phishing security is superior to any of its rivals, the first significant study to rate this element of browser security has concluded. The tests by US Microsoft consultants 3Sharp LLC pitted a range of browser plug-ins for anti-phishing security against the phishing filter, in beta three of IE 7.0, finding the Microsoft technology to be the most effective. Techworld.com - London, UK

Report: IE 7 Has the Best Anti-Phishing Filter

If you're looking to avoid phishing sites, you may need to look no further than Microsoft's soon to be released Internet Explorer 7 browser. InternetNews.com - USA

Too good to be true?

Lured by convenience and seemingly easy money, more and more people are falling prey to job scams. Particularly vulnerable are people who want or need to work from home and those who are looking supplement their income. Those who fall victim can suffer serious consequences including debt collection and criminal charges. CNN International - USA

Phishing Accounts for Over 50% of Malicious Emails in September

MessageLabs, a provider of integrated messaging and Web security services, has announced the results of its MessageLabs Intelligence Report for September and the third quarter of 2006. The company observed that the adoption of new spam techniques to circumvent traditional IT security and the sharp increase in phishing attacks accounted for more than half of all the malicious emails intercepted by MessageLabs in September. (beware: heavy spam site) IT News Online - Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Security report: Cybercrooks turn attention to home PCs

The bad news: The black hats are redoubling their efforts to get inside home computers, where security is often weaker. The most obvious result of this ugly trend is "phishing," where criminals send out e-mails that appear to be from PayPal, a bank or a credit-card company, asking you to click a link in the message to "verify" your account information. If you follow through, you arrive at a Web page designed to look like the real thing. As soon as you enter your account number and password, your account is at risk of getting cleaned out. San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA

New online community phishing database launched

Web company OpenDNS have launched the PhishTank system which allows registered users to enter details of sites they believe are involved in phishing, or to unlist sites that have been wrongly accused. Data also comes from other sources - presumably trusted online databases of known cybercriminals - and the data is available via a free API to allow it to be used in other systems. SEE: http://www.phishtank.com/ Mobile Digest - London,England,UK

Security Watch: Time to Set the Kill Bit

New programs aim to flag phishing sites and maybe even block them, but which is the best? We have data from a study on the subject, if you want to trust the study. Make up your own mind after reading the Phishing Detection section. ABC News - USA

Geek speak driving new wave of spam

MessageLabs' September intelligence report has highlighted "geek speak" as the new wave of social engineering techniques being used to send spam. According to MessageLabs, hidden keywords such as .Net, cpan, xss and Java, hidden within the body of text can trick Bayesian filters into thinking the message is anything other than spam.
      The report states phishing attacks increased 0.27 percent in September worldwide when compared to August last year, with one in 170 e-mails being phishing-related. As a proportion of all e-mail borne malicious code, phishing e-mails rose 21.7 percent, accounting for 52.4 percent of malicious e-mails found by MessageLabs in September. Macworld - San Francisco,CA, USA

Fight Phishing at the PhishTank

An Internet start-up called OpenDNS launched a community anti-phishing site called PhishTank earlier this week. Registered users can submit a URL of a suspected phishing site and weigh in on the veracity of other submissions. According to OpenDNS, the idea is that the more sites you correctly weigh in on, the more street cred you get, and the more your vote counts the next time around. (A phishing site is one that tries to trick you into submitting sensitive information, such as a credit card number. It usually shows up as a URL link in e-mail spam.) PC World - USA

MORE... Previously reported Phishing News

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CREDITS:
Written by Fred Showker for the User Group Network News Service "Safe Netting" department. (C) 2006, all rights reserved. Affiliate groups may freely republish this piece so long as they include the tag line: "From the User Group Network News Service at http://www.user-groups.net/ ". Mention of third-party products, web sites or companies is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither a recommendation nor an endorsement.

 

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