Thermit
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 272
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| Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar |
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Netcraft Unveils Anti-Phishing Services
January 5, 2005 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com) launched an anti-phishing service earlier this week in an effort to help financial institutions combat criminals and the Web hosting companies that host their fraudulent sites.
Phishing attacks involve the mass distribution of "spoofed" or forged email messages with return addresses, links, and branding which appear to come from legitimate financial institutions but are designed to lead recipients towards fraudulent Web sites that attempt to trick them into divulging personal data such as account usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and social security numbers.
In order to perpetrate their scams undetected, cyber criminals often work from hosts based in foreign countries where regulation is lax and law enforcement resources are relatively limited. Some hosting companies actually promote fraudulent site hosting, Netcraft says.
Netcraft's service helps banks combat these efforts. Once a phishing site has been detected, Netcraft responds with a set of actions it says will limit access to the site and ultimately lead to the fraudulent content being eliminated. Netcraft will contact the hosting company responsible for hosting the fraudulent content, get in touch with law enforcement authorities in a hosting company's jurisdiction, publish details of the fraudulent site, identify upstream bandwidth providers, along with various other services.
Netcraft also recently launched an anti-phishing toolbar to help users identify fraudulent Web sites. The toolbar uses Netcraft's database to give a user the hosting location, country, longevity and popularity of any Web site. The toolbar is integrated with a reporting service to which users can report fraudulent sites. Once a phishing URL is reported, that site is blocked for all users that may subsequently access that site.
Development of a Firefox version of the toolbar is under way, Netcraft said.
Toolbar link:
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/help/tutorials/installing.html
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Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:45 pm
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Thermit
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 272
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Phishing is way up. I probably delete 2 or 3 of these emails a day. PayPal, CitiBank, CitizensBank, etcetera....
My mother-in-law got bit by a PayPal version. I looked at the mail source and it had links to some weird place, but unfortunately it was too late. She contacted PayPal, and basically had to start over with a new account. Ouchy.
This toolbar sounds like an interesting idea, I'm going to have to install it and see how it works. Those netcraft guys have got it goin' on.
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Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:49 pm
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Thermit
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 272
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I installed the toolbar, and it's kinda cool, I like it.
The main pieces of information it provides are the date of first appearance and the national flag and name of the the hosting company.
One of my new domains, that I recently picked up apparently was first seen 5 years ago. I can't find anything in the Internet Archive for it. Interesting.
From the toolbar, WebMasterWorld.com is about 6 years old and has it's own dedicated hosting company based in Austin, TX.
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Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:50 am
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