Monday, 14 June 2010

Gone Phishing

Interesting report from All Spammed Up that the 'Avalanche' gang, based in Eastern Europe, was allegedly responsible for 75% of phishing in the second half of 2009.

The alleged 'Avalanche' modus operandi is to create forgeries of genuine, major web sites then send emails inviting customers to log-in. They're alleged to have cast their net about 84,000 times in the period, however, the 'uptime' of the bogus sites apparently declined.

Maybe they got bored. Or rich.

Meanwhile, the uptime for the other 28,000 alleged phishing expeditions increased, possibly reflecting the ever-expanding range of phishing methodologies.

The moral of the story? Don't bite: never log-in to a site that you didn't locate for yourself, and take care to read the full web address of the site you're about to log into.

Oh, and look out for "tabnabbing", whereby the phishermen re-direct one of your open browser tabs to a fake site - more a fish trap than your traditional bait-and-hook or net approach.

Image from Blog Inmobiliario de Bolsa Profesional Inmobiliaria

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