Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

In computing, phishing is a form of criminal activity using social engineering techniques. It is characterized by attempts to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication. Phishing is typically done using email or an instant message. The term phishing arises from the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' financial information and passwords. [Defined at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

The following is an example of what a phishing website might look like.

1.0 Fake Maybank 2U Portal

Figure 1: Phishing Site

2.0 Real Maybank 2U Portal

Figure 2: MayBank 2U Portal

The real portal is using “http://www.maybank2u.com.my” [Refer Figure 2] instead of “http://www.mayb2u.com” [Refer Figure 1] . So, all the users must make sure the correct website that they are looking for before logging in. If not the personal account information such as username and password are obtained by phishers through phishing site.

Website forgery / Spoofing

Some phishing scams use JavaScript to alter the address bar to make it seem legitimate. This is done by placing a picture of the legitimate company's URL over the addresbar, or by closing the original address bar and opening a new one containing the legitimate URL.

In another method of phishing that is quite popular, an attacker uses a trusted website's own scripts against the victim. These types of attacks (cross-site scripting) are particularly nasty, because they direct the user to sign in at their bank or service's own web page, where everything from the web address to the security certificates appears correct. This attack is very hard to spot as it is the link to the website is crafted to carry out the attack.

Visit the real site http://www.paypal.com/ and check for yourself how similar they look.

Prevention Methods:

Secure HTTP

Learn the difference between http:// and https:// (note the ‘s’ among the alphabetic characters. The https:// is a scheme used to indicate that the website employs a security method. In technical terms, http:// allows access to resources using a protocol that transfers contents into your browser. In https:// however, there is an extra encryption and authentication layer standing between your protocol and the Internet provider. The layer allows secured communication between the user and a service provider. And https:// stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer. Having an https:// should mean that you are doing a sensitive transaction, so also check the certificate of the website using such security scheme.

Password Protection

Although a lot of phishers are good at knowing details and facts about you, you are still the master of your virtual household. Learn to use several passwords instead of just one. By that, if a phisher gains access to, say, your blogging account and get a hold of your e-mail address, if you have different passwords between your blog account and your e-mail account, they cannot access your more sensitive account with your blog account password simply because the phisher knows the wrong password to the right account.

Use your anti-phishing toolbar. If they are identified as spoof websites, anti-phishing toolbars are still not efficient. That is because you just let your toolbar sit on your computer while you wait for it to react. Not all automatic things are secured, so use your anti-phishing toolbar. Get the ones that display the real address of the website along with a few details regarding the website. To use it, compare the address you visited from the data the toolbar gave you. If somehow some details didn’t match, doubt the website immediately. Just by that, you can avoid being phished 80 per cent of the time.

DNS

If you are the techie type of person, then you might know a lot about how things go within the Internet world that you can employ advanced technical measures than the previous two above. If you have heard of specialized Domain Name System (DNS) service, then use it. DNS service acts like a firewall when it filters phishing sites from the ones you visits or have visited already. It works with any type of browsers too. Further security measures require outsiders to monitor and check around if the company is a likely to be the target of phishers. Such stand-alone security groups give out analysis and assistance for a company to avoid being phished, as it would be a grave financial damage if a company fell for a phishing scam. Moreover, individuals who know anti-phishing measures can be hired to check and report any loopholes that the company has. Better have an expert around!