Netcraft Releases Anti-Phishing Toolbar

AgainstHate writes "Netcraft has released an Anti-Phishing Toolbar that provides detailed information about the website you are visiting (sites' hosting location, country, longevity and popularity) at all times to help users to validate fraudulent URLs. It also natively traps cross site scripting and other suspicious URLs. The toolbar also enables users to report phishing attacks to Netcraft, thus blocking any other unsuspecting users from being harmed (Netcraft supervisor validation is used to contain the impact of any false reporting). Currently the toolbar is only available for IE but a Firefox version is under development."

Comments

Nostradamus Predicts

[the_mad_poster]

This will have little affect because:

1) The people who really need it will never hear about it.

2) Even if 1 fails to return true, the people who really need it will never be able to find it amongst the 82 other toolbars that various companies have so helpfully installed for the sucke.... uh... users.

Re:Nostradamus Predicts

[The Snowman]

They really don't need a firefox version anyway..

People who use firefox fall under those who don't really need it :)

Maybe for the time being. Right now, Firefox largely is a geek browser. However, recent news shows that it is becoming more popular and mainstream. Software can only do so much to curb user ignorance. Firefox is not perfect, nor does it stop phishing and other scams. Plugins, such as this toolbar, could help prevent Joe Sixpack from scammers and phishers. After seeing enough message boxes about malicious sites, hopefully he will learn the skills he needs so he will not need the toolbar anymore.

If Firefox does not keep the scammers and phishers away, new users will abandon it and go back to what they already know: IE.

Re:Nostradamus Predicts

[RangerRick98]

Software can only do so much to curb user ignorance.

You make the point very well right there. I don't care what features a browser includes to curb scamming and phishing and the like, if the users don't pay attention to what they're doing it won't make a bit of difference. Toolbars are out of the way and require a conscious decision to check them, and so they probably won't do any good, and popup messages are so common for the most mundane of errors that a lot of users I know won't even read it before clicking OK, even if it's a popup they know they haven't seen before.

Users need to learn not to assume their computer and the Internet are safe and instead educate themselves on how to recognize scams themselves.

Re:Nostradamus Predicts

[Twanfox]

Hopefully there are sane judges and juries that understand the notion that if you inform a software company of a flaw and they fail to fix it for over a year, that if an exploit ever does become public, the fault lies with the software company (that did nothing to remedy the problem, dispite having far more than ample time to do so) instead of the discoverer (that did the responsible thing by reporting the flaw to the maker of the software).

Re:Nostradamus Predicts

[the_mad_poster]

Except, for people to treat their cars the way they do their computers, they'd have to:

• Never get an oil change. Ever. Everytime the oil burned into the pan and the car stopped running altogether, they'd just replace the whole pan and rebuild the block to clean the ooze out. They would also whine incessantly about having to do this.
• Never check their tire pressure. Ever. They would simply drive the car until the tires blew, then continue to drive on the rims complaing about how hard it is to control.
• Drive the cars around bad neighbordhoods all the time without taking any precautions. When they get caught in a drive by, or someone comes along and smashes up their car, they'd whine about the car getting damaged as if it were the car's fault.
• Everytime someone offered to install something, they'd do it. This would include everything from cutesy stickers with corrosive backing to "engine upgrades" that make the car go half as fast, but lets you change the color of your headlights. All negative affects would, again, be blamed on the car.

Computers are complex tools that require maintenance. Hell, some people pay more attention to their toaster's maintenance than the computer's maintenance. At least they clean the damn crumbs out of it from time to time.

Sounds like

[Gr8Apes]

something you'd look at initially, get used to, and quickly ignore.

Heh

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

Will this really protect people who succumb to phishing in the first place?

If you're going to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book, I don't think this new-fangled anti-phishing toolbar is going to do you any help.

I would think FF/ Mozilla users

[Nurseman]

are a little more tech savvy, on the whole. They have gone to the trouble to download a safer browser, and probably less likely to get sucked into a phish scam. OTOH, I have seen some pretty good ones, and I did click on a Pay Pal one, before I had second thoughts.

Re:I would think FF/ Mozilla users

[Errtu76]

except for the people who use Mozilla/FireFox because their friend/relative have advised it. Can you think of anyone that wasn't too technical whom you advised they should use an alternative to IE?

Btw, what's wrong with spoofstick?

Wrong way to fix the problem

[diegocgteleline.es]

IMHO the right fix is to have a good browser which don't allow phising.

Wait 48 hours

[SilverspurG]

And someone with a malicious website will have figured out how to use this anti-phishing toolbar as a vector for remote code execution.

spyware

[paulius_g]

Spyware???

I hope not.

Netscraft confirms...

[Stevyn]

...that this is an old, outdated, and unfunny joke.

Not Gonna Help

[photonrider]

This toolbar isn't going to help. The user still has to know how to evaluate the information the toolbar is presenting. The information on it at Netcraft is going to require explaining to 99% of the users. It adds conplexity for users that already can't handle complexity. If it was a simple green light or red light then it might be useful for the masses, as is, it's more noise users can't handle.

Two simple things users should do that have already been published in nearly every article on scams;

1. Use an email client like mail in OSX that you can configure for text only with the option to load images. That alone will reveal scam emails for what they are instantly.

2. Never ever enter personal information on some web page you got off a link in an email. Never. If it purports to come from your bank, manually type in your banks URL and see if you can verify what the email is saying, or call your bank or credit card company. Banks or credit cards today will never send you an email trying to scare you, saying you'll "lose access" if you don't visit their site. They've already learned not to do that because of the scams.

This toolbar might be interesting to a geek but it will raise more questions from ma and grandma than it answers.

Re:Popup Blocker?

[Karrots]

Or they could be those still running W2k.

You're underestimating the effort involved.

[sean.peters]

Most people would rather have someone else change the oil in their cars, even though it takes 10 minutes and half the money than professionals charge.

Hogwash.

• driving to the auto parts place to get oil, filters, etc - 20 minutes
• draining oil, removing filter, installing new filter, adding oil - 10 minutes for this step only if you do this for a living. At least 15 minutes for ordinary mortals.
• Driving halfway across the county to the only place that will take used oil for recycling - 45 minutes
• Washing the clothes that got dirty while working on car - 30 minutes (with the possibility of doing other things during wash/dry cycle)
• 45 minutes/$30 spent getting Jiffy Lube to do it, while I shop, read, etc... priceless

Yes, I changed my own oil for years. Now I have better things to do with my life. Change a few words around in this reasoning, and you'll understand why "most people" don't want to fool around with their computers.

Sean

Re:Adware?

[myukew]

excellent. could've been my idea! let's stop all the other phishers so we can phish more effectively!

That's what I call a good strategy

what we really need to worry about

[monotheist]

what we really need to worry about is all the telephone, power, internet, etc. companies serving up all your credit information to huge call centers filled with incompetent people over internet explorer. as my trainer says, "you'll have to open another E to get to that program." "that program" is the one we use to view and change account information.

it is scary, yes?
it is savvy, no.