How to Avoid Phishing

• Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal
  
  financial information

• Don't use the links in an email to get to any web page, if
  
  you suspect the message might not be authentic.

• Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for
  
  personal financial information

• Always ensure that you're using a secure website when
  
  submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser

• Consider installing a Web browser tool bar to help protect
  
  you from known phishing fraud websites

• Regularly log into your online accounts

• Regularly check your bank, credit and debit card statements
  
  to ensure that all transactions are legitimate

• Ensure that your browser is up to date and security patches
  
  applied

Source: Anti Phishing Working Group

Password Stealing Malicious Code Unique Applications

Phishing Reports

As number of phishing reports dropped marginally in July '05, the number of

reportedly phished brands dropped to 71 from a high of 107 in May '05.

However, phishers are spreading their nets, and are moving away from some

traditional larger targets, and hitting a wider base of smaller financial

institutions.

Quick Bytes

• According to a Gartner report, 33% of online shoppers are buying fewer
  
  items due to concerns about online fraud, and 75% are more cautious about
  
  where they shop online. Between May 2004 and May 2005, about 73 mn consumers
  
  received e-mail phishing attacks, up 28% from 57 mn received between April
  
  2003 and April 2004. 2.4 mn consumers have reported losing money directly
  
  due to phishing attacks; of those consumers, half lost a combined $929 mn in
  
  the 12 months preceding the survey.
• According to IDC estimates, the financial sector has been the consistent
  
  target for 80% of the phishing attacks. In another report by IDC, 67% of
  
  desktops are infected by Spyware.
• Companies that are up in arms after being targeted: Paypal, eBay, Citizens
  
  Bank, Bank Of America, MSN, Amazon.com, VISA, Citibank, Lloyds TSB, Yahoo,
  
  US Bank, Microsoft and AOL among others.
• Hurricane Katrina has spawned more than misery and destruction-a new
  
  wave of scam e-mails and Web sites are exploiting the tragedy. If users
  
  click on the link contained inside the e-mail, they are taken to a malicious
  
  Web site which will try and infect their computer. Other bogus e-mails are
  
  circulating asking people to aid hurricane victims and their families by
  
  clicking on a PayPal button to make a donation.

Total Security Services Market during 2004-05 (by pure-play services

Vendors)

Increased security threats amid lots of malware detection helped push the

market

Some Threats & Attacks (2004-05)

Virus Outbreak

• The mass-mailing worm programs BAGLE, MYDOOM and NETSKY
  
  caused a majority of the virus outbreaks for 2004-05. The BAGLE worm caused
  
  15 outbreaks, while NETSKY caused 7 and MYDOOM, 3.

• The aggressive clampdown on authors of malicious worm
  
  programs that led to the arrest of the SASSER worm author on May 8, 2004
  
  helped lessen the successive virus outbreaks.

Malware

• There were a total 16,880 malware detections. Expectedly,
  
  Trojans, at 33% of all malware, comprised the bulk of detections.

• There were more than 5,000 Trojan detections, 45% of which
  
  were from actual customer submissions (real-time sample submission and case
  
  handling).

Profit-Driven Attacks

• The year 2004 saw an increase in profit-driven attacks with
  
  the proliferation of bot programs, increased phishing attacks and alarming
  
  growth of spam volume.

• A total of 2,830 bot programs were documented making up more
  
  than 35% of the total number of newly discovered malware detections for the
  
  whole year.

• Spam volume swelled to comprise 60% of all email messages. A
  
  total of 1,681,773 spam mails were registered globally in 2004, 35% of which
  
  were financial-related, while another 20% fell under the health category.

• July generated the most number of phishing mail incidence
  
  with 2,932 received samples, which was a huge leap from the total of 104
  
  phishing mails recorded in May.

Source: Trend Micro

Phishing and Pharming Murky Waters

Phishing is derived from "fishing"-a social

engineering attack attempting to trick users into revealing personal information

like passwords and credit card numbers. E-mails masquerading as official

messages from banks are typical tools used by phishers.

Phishing scams hooked unwary Internet users one by one to

divulge data. But pharming threatens to reel-in entire schools of victims.

Pharming (from farming) exploits the DNS-the Internet system that translates a

computer name into an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

A computer with a compromised host file will go to the wrong

website even if the user types the correct URL. More alarming is DNS poisoning

where the Domain Name System directory is 'poisoned' and csan cause large

groups of users to be herded to fraudulent look-alike sites.