Phishing is the new black

Various reports show a dramatic increase in phishing attacks, which now account for almost a third of all malware threats.

About two years ago, phishing attacks were only in English and targeted at banking customers, now they are seen in most dialects and use eBay, PayPal and other portals to gain information.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group recently reported that instances of malware sites have risen 40% in a year.

With all these increased attacks, many Web sites and browsers are implementing phishing filters to address the problem. Yahoo has implemented an anti-phishing technique on its Web site by using a 'sign-in seal`, a unique image or message that is displayed to verify site authentication.

If there is no 'sign-in seal` present, Yahoo warns, the user could be visiting a phishing site. This feature is currently only available on Yahoo US sites.

With all these increased attacks, many Web sites and browsers are implementing phishing filters to address the problem.

Ilva Pieterse, ITWeb journalist

Microsoft is using a new data-mining technique in its Internet browsers to guard against phishing. The new technology crawls the Internet and builds lists of Web sites and their legitimate IP addresses, especially financial companies and e-commerce sites.

Instead of building a blacklist of phishing sites to compare against, it creates a list of good sites. For suspicious Web sites, such as a bank site with an irregular URL, the phishing filter triggers a warning to the user to either continue viewing the site or close the Web page.

PandaLabs has detected a spam message that subliminally tries to con the reader to buy stock online. A sequence of images featuring the word 'buy` is flashed rapidly and repeatedly in hopes that the reader`s sub-conscious will be affected.

This is the first time an e-mail message using this kind of technique has been reported, and is expected to become more sophisticated as the trend catches on.

An ex-Microsoft employee, ironically named Window Snyder, who worked on the Windows XP Service Pack 2 update, has joined Mozilla as a security strategist.

Snyder will take charge of Mozilla`s security strategy and will be the public voice of Mozilla on security issues.

Sources: PandaLabs, Info World, CSO Online, Computing.co.uk