Slashdot Mirror
How Well Do Businesses Respond to Phishing Reports?
FuzzyDaddy asks: "When I receive a phishing email, which I find has some new or interesting technique, I will usually forward it to the appropriate abuse department. I recently got one concerning 'my' paypal account (surprising, since I don't have one), which I forwarded to abuse@paypal.com. I received an automated reply telling me to 'please direct all customer service inquires through our website.' I didn't have time to do that, so I let it go. Is paypal being irresponsible, here? Have others on Slashdot been satisfied with their attempts to report Phishing?"
The headers allow us and the wronged entity to attempt to get something done about said zombied machines, bad formmails, and so on. Sometimes it leads nowhere but other times we can put a stop to a source of spam. You would be amazed at how many phishing emails come from things like the php-nuke webmail module. We this is the case the offending provider usually takes swift action. Reporting a phishing site should lead to a chain of events and while rarely leads to those phishing it can help to stem the flow of spam over the net to a small degree.