PayPal Most Phished, Facebook Most Blocked

Orome1 writes "OpenDNS released statistics about which websites were commonly blocked — and which websites users were frequently given access to — in 2010. The report additionally details the companies online scammers targeted in 2010, as well as where the majority of phishing websites were hosted. Facebook is both one of the most blocked and the most allowed websites, reflecting the push/pull of allowing social sites in schools and the workplace. On the other hand, 45 percent of all phishing attempts made in 2010 were targeting PayPal."

Comments

Obscurity FTW

[Locke2005]

My strategy of never having either a PayPal or Facebook account appears to have paid off!

Re:Obscurity FTW

[MrEricSir]

Congratulations, by not doing popular things, you're a better person than everyone else!

Re:Obscurity FTW

[eepok]

Not better... but safer.

Re:Obscurity FTW

[CastrTroy]

This is the problem with PayPal. They actually do send real emails to customers about their account. Because this is the only way they can contact their customers. Everybody knows (or should know) that your bank will never send you an email and ask you to verify account information. And and disregard any email that is apparently coming from your bank. However, many people will trust an email that appears to be from PayPal, because paypal regularly corresponds with customers via email. Paypal is basically a bank that only works via email. Which makes it a prime target for phishers.

Re:Obscurity FTW

[Man Eating Duck]

This is the problem with PayPal. They actually do send real emails to customers about their account. Because this is the only way they can contact their customers.

I got an email from them about my account being suspended because of "hacking attempts". I've gotten several, but this one seemed legit because they asked me to call them by looking up their customer service number on their site (no link). I did, and they requested that I faxed them some proof of residence at my address. I faxed them various utility bills, and eventually my account was activated again.

I don't remember the exact course of events, but the line of questions I got made me pretty confident that they really care about security.

OpenDNS

[uigrad_2000]

I'm not sure how any of this is news. It seems to just be an ad for the OpenDNS service.

The company provides a ton of different services dealing with filtering traffic based on the address. They have one service that blocks commonly misspelled DNS names. They also allow a company to create black or white lists for traffic, for any reason that they want.

The two statistics they list are not related. Obviously phishing for banking information is more successful when you are register a domain name similar to a site whose main purpose is allowing transactions with money (paypal). White and Black lists are bound to be filled with well known websites, of which facebook is definitely in the top ten. The article says that Facebook is the second-most whitelisted site, and doesn't give the first, but I'll bet it's Google.

Another reason to block Facebook

[dbIII]

I've had to upgrade a few work computers simply because their web browsers were slow to render the truly crappy interface of Facebook while there was other stuff running.
Then people spending too much time looking at Facebook instead of working led to management mandating blanket blocks of everything on the web during peak work times resulting in more time wasting because users had to wait before they can look up work related information.
Technological solutions to minor social problems really suck. The true answer is for management to tell people not to waste time playing on the net instead of cutting the cord.