Slashdot Mirror
"Phishing" Attacks to Increase
neutron_p writes "The number of people who succumb to identity thieves' "phishing" e-mails could go way up if immediate action isn't taken to preempt the next generation of attacks, according to an Indiana University School of Informatics researcher. "Phishing" e-mails appear to be sent by legitimate businesses, but are actually created and distributed by villains who are after your personal information. They describe some thieves' tricks. One kind of context-aware attack tricks eBay bidders into giving out identifying information by leading bidders to believe they've won an auction. In another kind of context-aware attack, a potential victim might receive a message from a known person -- for example, a friend or loved one - asking him or her to go to a Web site to update banking information."
Was the addition of yellow highlighting for secure sites, and the domain in the status bar. It really makes picking up when you're on a secure site easier. In the past you had to really look for that little lock icon or whatever.
Phishing is just conmen moving to the internet. They use similar tricks in the real world, just on a smaller audience. Here in the DC area there are several police imposters running around, some of them tricking people into withdrawing all the money from their bank (it's counterfeit!!!) and others actually using flashing lights to pull over people on the road.
Until the majority of the people out there have the critial thinking skills to deal with this sort of thing the problems will continue. The same people who are stupid enough to give out their info to someone who e-mails them are the one buying shit from SPAM e-mails.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
How are we supposed to tell the difference between a legitimate email from a company and a phishing attempt when places like CapitalOne use skeezy companies like bfi0.com for sending email to their customers? A link that says "Click here to access your statement" that actually goes to http://capitalone.bfi0.com/T8RT044ABB6D98DEB357FB2 EDD4A80 makes me feel safe inside.
I almost completely agree that if you're dumb enough to fall for the scam, you deserve it.
Most slashdot readers are smart enough to avoid this type of scam, so it's easy to say "these scams don't affect me." Them problem is, they do. Increased success of scams leads to increased fees and holdbacks for credit card transactions, increased retail prices, increased costs for investigations, increased costs for prevention and decreased productivity. These are all small hidden costs but they add up. Maximizing prevetion has real economic benefits for everyone. Sympathizing with the criminals only hurts lawful consumers.
It's not North Korea, it's South Korea. The place is full of ridiculously fat broadband connections, and the ISPs don't seem too bothered about what goes on on the networks. Since Koreans aren't any brighter than the rest of us, an awful lot of those broadband connections go to Windows machines which have been 0wnz0red since about 30 seconds after they were first switched on.
And that's before we even consider the mail servers installed in every school in the country, which are wide-open mail relays out of the box. Aaarrrggghhh!
South Korea would be paradise to be in - fat connection and nobody giving a filesystem check what you're doing with it - but the consequences for the rest of the world are becoming a nightmare.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
That's unenforceable because it's impossible to prove that any particular illegal use of my credit card number was the (direct or indirect) result of my giving the number to the wrong person. Besides, that liability clause is a selling point for credit cards. No one would choose a card that held them liable for unauthorized charges.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart