Netcraft Toolbar for Firefox Available

miller60 writes "Netcraft has just released the Firefox version of its anti-phishing toolbar, which blocks known phishing sites and suspicious urls, and displays the hosting information and risk rating for visited sites. Toolbar users have submitted more than 5,600 phishing sites since the IE version was released in late December."

Comments

Re:Netcraft confirms....

[NetNifty]

" Netcraft confirms that Firefox users are already smart enough to figure out if a site is phishing"

Not necessarily, it isn't just geeks that use Firefox any more - I for one (and I'm sure many other /.ers have too) have installed Firefox for many other people who would be using IE otherwise.

Kudos Netcraft

[bogaboga]

"...Better late than never..."

That aside; if it takes a company like Netcraft almost 6 months to come out with a Linux version, to me that's being slow to act. Thanx never-the-less to Netcraft.

There are enough security tools available...

[Sheetrock]

The trick is in persuading people to use them. Microsoft is in the best position to do this, and I applaud the techniques they released in SP2 to recommend basic firewalling and regular software updates, but it is still up to users to run a virus scanner, file integrity checker, and turn off services they don't require.

A vegetarian diet is tastier and better for you than what most people eat, but it requires consciousness that there is a problem with the status quo and a dedication to change it. Similarly it is easier to run a computer packed full of spyware and viruses than it is to research the problem and patch the holes. That's up to the end user, but they first need to be aware of the problems -- and it's up to people like us to wake them up.

Re:There are enough security tools available...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A vegetarian diet is tastier and better for you than what most people eat

Your point is well taken, but the "tastiness" of a vegetarian diet is very much a personal preference and the healthiness is a matter of your metabolism. A full 8% of the human race will slowly die without meat in their diet due to the lack of certain enzymes. As an aside, have you ever noticed how vegetarian meals often are imitations of meat or dairy products? I've seen vegetarian cheeseburgers and thought, "man, just buy the real thing already." As I said though, it's a a personal preference.

how well does this actually work

[JeanBaptiste]

no I havent tried it (don't really use phishing sites much myself ;)

but "Toolbar users have submitted more than 5,600 phishing sites"

aren't these phishing sites usually up for only a short time, like a couple days, before they get shut down? I would think that most the sites on the 'bad list' would be shut down by the time a user gets around to updating thier 'bad list' for their toolbar.

just a guess.

Now if only I could get my people to use Firefox

[ndansmith]

Use the same tactics as the Phishers to dupe your fellow employees to use Firefox:

1. Remove the IE shortcut from the desktop
2. Add a Firefox shortcut to the desktop
3. Rename said shortcut "Internet Explorer"
4. Change icon of said shortcut to the blue "E"
5. Download and install a Firefox theme which emulates the look and feel of IE.

And there you have it! You have adapted the malicious tactics of Phishers to keep your people safe from Phishers.

Re:Petname toolbar

[Ochu]

And anyone computer-savvy enough to be using firefox, downloading addons, making pet names, and then remembering to check won't be caught by a pisher anyway...

Re:It breaks tabbed browsing.

[BrynM]

Confirmed, at least for the 20 minutes the toolbar was installed for me. Netcraft has a lot more porting to do to get a FF version of the toolbar working right. The toolbar doesn't appear to be aware of tabs itself and the other open tabs stopped updating the address bar when they are switched to. FYI: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4 - Already submitted to Netcraft.

Alternate solution:

[deacon]

Read your email in pine. No links. No images. No web-bugs.

Press "h" on the keyboard to see the raw html of html email, including all the headers.

It is very easy to spot fake emails once pine strips off all the glitzy fluff, and you look at the header of any emails that pass initial inspection.

why are they using a toolbar

[krunk4ever]

I don't really know why netcraft needs to be in the form of a toolbar. Why can't it be like AdBlock and put a small icon in lower right corner. I mean, it's not like a search engine where you actually need to have much intereaction with it.

instead i suggest that they have a small icon on the lower right corner as suggested before. when the user is trying to access a known phishing site, either pop up a error box asking if user would like to continue, or redirect them to warning page. to submit phising sites to netcraft, you can easily add netcraft menu on the right click (like how you blocking ads in adblock works) and within that menu, you can submit the site.

Re:What to do when you're bored? Fish the phishers

[BetaJim]

yeah that is until you unintentionally enter a real account number and someone somewhere is the victim... perhaps one of those people out there that you wanted to help you in your quest generates your CC or bank account number an end up with no money in your account or a maxed out CC.... moron!

I guess you don't know much about bank accounts or credit cards. What I'm doing is very safe. The likelihood of submitting a valid credit card number, expiration date, and verification number is very small. Especially, when you include an account holder name! Please get a clue.