Will Phishers Take the Bait?
Friday, October 12th, 2007Three internet heavies have developed a new plan to stop, or at least harass phishers. Yahoo!, eBay and PayPal have joined forces to create a tool to protect their users from the constant scams that flood their inboxes. The new technology is an email authentication tool that validates the origins of an email and makes black and white lists work more effectively.
Phishing
Phishing is the fastest growing internet crime. In a phishing scheme, an email is sent to an individual demanding immediate action for their account – usually a bank or ecommerce account. The individual clicks through the email to visit the site and the phisher is able to record as much personal information as possible as the individual types in their usernames, passwords, credit card information and even their social security number.
Phishing is obviously illegal, but is growing more common despite this. Often websites like eBay and PayPal as well as credit card and banking sites are subjected to phishing scams where their site is targeted as the sender of email. This makes it difficult for individuals who use the services to recognize when an email is authentic and when it is part of a scam. You should not even open email from phishers as they can download Trojans or software to record keystrokes. (more…)


