An example of a phishing e-mail, disguised as an official e-mail from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing secure information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website. Note the misspelling of the words received and discrepancy.

In computing, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from PayPal, eBay or online banks are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging,^[1] and it often directs users to enter details at a website. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users.^[2] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures. Image File history File links PhishingTrustedBank. ... Image File history File links PhishingTrustedBank. ... For the formal concept of computation, see computation. ... for other uses please see Crime (disambiguation) A crime is an act that violates a political or moral law. ... In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain. ... A password is a form of secret authentication data that is used to control access to a resource. ... eBays North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPals corporate headquarters) PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. ... This article is about the online auction center. ... Online banking (or Internet banking) is a term used for performing transactions, payments etc. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... // Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. ... Social engineering is the practice of obtaining confidential information by manipulation of legitimate users. ... Legislation (or statutory law) is law which has been promulgated (or enacted) by a legislature or other governing body. ...

A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term "phishing" was made in 1996. The term is a variant of fishing,^[3] probably influenced by phreaking,^[4][5] and alludes to baits used to "catch" financial information and passwords. Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, like equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. ...

History and current status of phishing

A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, in a paper and presentation delivered to the International HP Users Group, Interex.^[6] The first recorded mention of the term "phishing" is on the alt.online-service.America-online Usenet newsgroup on January 2, 1996,^[7] although the term may have appeared earlier in the print edition of the hacker magazine 2600.^[8] The Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), commonly known as HP, is a very large, global company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. ... Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... A newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ... is the 2nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Fall 2004 (21:3) 2600 Issue 2600: The Hacker Quarterly is a traditional (printed) magazine named for the fact that phreakers in the 1960s found that the transmission of a 2600 Hertz tone (which could be produced perfectly with a plastic toy whistle given away free with Capn Crunch...

Early phishing on AOL

Phishing on AOL was closely associated with the warez community that exchanged pirated software. They later phished on AOL during the early 1990s using fake, algorithmically generated credit card numbers to create accounts on AOL, which could last weeks or possibly months. After AOL brought in measures to prevent this in late 1995, early AOL crackers resorted to phishing for legitimate accounts.^[9] Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works traded in violation of copyright law. ... The copyright infringement of software is often called software piracy by those seeking to reduce its incidence. ... For other uses, see AOL (disambiguation). ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion, because: If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page or at Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. ...

A phisher might pose as an AOL staff member and send an instant message to a potential victim, asking him to reveal his password.^[10] In order to lure the victim into giving up sensitive information the message might include imperatives like "verify your account" or "confirm billing information". Once the victim had revealed the password, the attacker could access and use the victim's account for criminal purposes or spamming. Both phishing and warezing on AOL generally required custom-written programs, such as AOHell. Phishing became so prevalent on AOL that they added a line on all instant messages stating: "no one working at AOL will ask for your password or billing information". An instant messenger is a computer application which allows instant text communication between two or more people through a network such as the Internet. ... This article is about electronic spam. ... AOHell was a tool which greatly simplified cracking online using AOL. Released in 1994 by a cracker known as Da Chronic, AOHell provided a number of utilities which ran on top of the America Online client software. ...

After 1997, AOL's policy enforcement with respect to phishing and warez became stricter and forced pirated software off AOL servers. AOL simultaneously developed a system to promptly deactivate accounts involved in phishing, often before the victims could respond. The shutting down of the warez scene on AOL caused most phishers to leave the service, and many phishers—often young teens—grew out of the habit.^[11]

Transition from AOL to financial institutions

The capture of AOL account information may have led phishers to misuse credit card information, and to the realization that attacks against online payment systems were feasible. The first known direct attempt against a payment system affected E-gold in June 2001, which was followed up by a "post-911 id check" shortly after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.^[12] Both were viewed at the time as failures, but can now be seen as early experiments towards more fruitful attacks against mainstream banks. By 2004, phishing was recognized as a fully industrialized part of the economy of crime: specializations emerged on a global scale that provided components for cash, which were assembled into finished attacks.^[13][14] e-gold is a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. ... A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11—pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly...

Recent phishing attempts

A chart showing the increase in phishing reports from October 2004 to June 2005.

Phishers are targeting the customers of banks and online payment services. E-mails, supposedly from the Internal Revenue Service, have been used to glean sensitive data from U.S. taxpayers.^[15] While the first such examples were sent indiscriminately in the expectation that some would be received by customers of a given bank or service, recent research has shown that phishers may in principle be able to determine which banks potential victims use, and target bogus e-mails accordingly.^[16] Targeted versions of phishing have been termed spear phishing.^[17] Several recent phishing attacks have been directed specifically at senior executives and other high profile targets within businesses, and the term whaling has been coined for these kinds of attacks.^[18] Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1165x758, 56 KB) Chart I made for the Phishing article that uses data from Anti-Phishing Working Group that was taken from the website on August 5, 2005 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1165x758, 56 KB) Chart I made for the Phishing article that uses data from Anti-Phishing Working Group that was taken from the website on August 5, 2005 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old... Seal of the Internal Revenue Service Tax rates around the world Tax revenue as % of GDP Part of the Taxation series        IRS redirects here. ...

Social networking sites are a target of phishing, since the personal details in such sites can be used in identity theft;^[19] in late 2006 a computer worm took over pages on MySpace and altered links to direct surfers to websites designed to steal login details.^[20] Experiments show a success rate of over 70% for phishing attacks on social networks.^[21] A social network service focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software. ... Identity theft is a term used to refer to fraud that involves stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be someone else. ... A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ...

Almost half of phishing thefts in 2006 were committed by groups operating through the Russian Business Network based in St. Petersburg.^[22] The Russian Business Network (commonly abbreviated as RBN) is a multi-faceted cybercrime organization, specializing in and in some cases monopolizing personal identity theft for resale. ... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland...

Phishing techniques

Link manipulation

Most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a link in an e-mail (and the spoofed website it leads to) appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Misspelled URLs or the use of subdomains are common tricks used by phishers. In the following example URL, http://www.yourbank.example.com/, it appears as though the URL will take you to the example section of the yourbank website; in actual fact this URL points to the "yourbank" (i.e. phishing) section of the example website. Another common trick is to make the anchor text for a link appear to be valid, when the link actually goes to the phishers' site. The following example link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine, appears to take you to an article entitle "Genuine"; clicking on it will in fact take you to the article entitled "Deception". A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), is a compact string of characters used to identify or name a resource. ... Website spoofing is the act of creating a website, as a hoax, with the intention of misleading readers that the website has been created by a different person or organisation. ... A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), is a compact string of characters used to identify or name a resource. ... In computing, an HTML element indicates structure in an HTML document and a way of hierarchically arranging content. ...

An old method of spoofing used links containing the '@' symbol, originally intended as a way to include a username and password (contrary to the standard).^[23] For example, the link http://www.google.com@members.tripod.com/ might deceive a casual observer into believing that it will open a page on www.google.com, whereas it actually directs the browser to a page on members.tripod.com, using a username of www.google.com: the page opens normally, regardless of the username supplied. Such URLs were disabled in Internet Explorer,^[24] while Mozilla Firefox^[25] and Opera present a warning message and give the option of continuing to the site or cancelling. Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. ... Firefox redirects here. ... Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by the Norwegian Opera Software company. ...

A further problem with URLs has been found in the handling of Internationalized domain names (IDN) in web browsers, that might allow visually identical web addresses to lead to different, possibly malicious, websites. Despite the publicity surrounding the flaw, known as IDN spoofing^[26] or a homograph attack,^[27] no known phishing attacks have yet taken advantage of it.^{[citation needed]} Phishers have taken advantage of a similar risk, using open URL redirectors on the websites of trusted organizations to disguise malicious URLs with a trusted domain.^[28][29][30] Example of Arabic IDN Example of Chinese IDN Example of Persian IDN Example of Greek IDN Example of Hebrew IDN Example of Ukrainian IDN An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that (potentially) contains non-ASCII characters. ... An example of a Web browser (Mozilla Firefox) A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. ... Example of Arabic IDN Example of Chinese IDN An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that (potentially) contains non_ASCII characters. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Homograph spoofing attack. ... URL redirection, also called URL forwarding, domain redirection and domain forwarding, is a technique on the World Wide Web for making a web page available under many URLs. ...

Filter evasion

Phishers have used images instead of text to make it harder for anti-phishing filters to detect text commonly used in phishing e-mails.^[31]

Website forgery

Once the prey visits the website some phishing scams use JavaScript commands in order to alter the address bar. ^[32] This is done either by placing a picture of a legitimate URL over the address bar, or by closing the original address bar and opening a new one with the legitimate URL.^[33] JavaScript is a scripting language most often used for client-side web development. ... A URL bar, or location bar/address bar, is a widget in a web browser which indicates the URL of the webpage currently viewed. ...

An attacker can use flaws in a trusted website's scripts against the victim.^[34] These types of attacks (known as cross-site scripting) are particularly problematic, 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. In reality, the link to the website is crafted to carry out the attack, although it is very difficult to spot without specialist knowledge. Just such a flaw was used in 2006 against PayPal.^[35] Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications which allow code injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users. ... A Uniform Resource Locator, URL (spelled out as an acronym, not pronounced as earl), or Web address, is a standardized address name layout for resources (such as documents or images) on the Internet (or elsewhere). ... Transport Layer Security (TLS) and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers. ... eBays North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPals corporate headquarters) PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. ...

A Universal Man-in-the-middle Phishing Kit, discovered by RSA Security, provides a simple-to-use interface that allows a phisher to convincingly reproduce websites and capture log-in details entered at the fake site.^[36] It has been suggested that Mafia Fraud Attack be merged into this article or section. ... RSA, The Security Division of EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, and maintains offices in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Japan. ...

To avoid anti-phishing techniques that scan websites for phishing-related text, phishers have begun to use Flash-based websites. These look much like the real website, but hide the text in a multimedia object.^[37] Adobe Flash (previously called Shockwave Flash and Macromedia Flash) is a set of multimedia technologies developed and distributed by Adobe Systems and earlier by Macromedia. ...

Phone phishing

Not all phishing attacks require a fake website. Messages that claimed to be from a bank told users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank accounts.^[38] Once the phone number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a Voice over IP service) was dialed, prompts told users to enter their account numbers and PIN. Vishing (voice phishing) sometimes uses fake caller-ID data to give the appearance that calls come from a trusted organization.^[39] An overview of how VoIP works A typical analog telephone adapter for connecting an ordinary phone to a VoIP network Ciscos implementation of VoIP - IP Phone Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP (pronounced voyp), IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Phishing examples

PayPal phishing example

An example of a phishing e-mail targeted at PayPal users.

In an example PayPal phish (right), spelling mistakes in the e-mail and the presence of an IP address in the link (visible in the tooltip under the yellow box) are both clues that this is a phishing attempt. Another giveaway is the lack of a personal greeting, although the presence of personal details would not be a guarantee of legitimacy. A legitimate Paypal communication will always greet the user with his or her real name, not just with a generic greeting like, "Dear Accountholder." Other signs that the message is a fraud are misspellings of simple words, bad grammar and the threat of consequences such as account suspension if the recipient fails to comply with the message's requests. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (612x797, 48 KB) This is a screenshot I took of a Phishing attempt that pretends to be from Paypal. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (612x797, 48 KB) This is a screenshot I took of a Phishing attempt that pretends to be from Paypal. ... eBays North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPals corporate headquarters) PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. ... An IP address (or Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that certain electronic devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)—in simpler terms, a computer address. ... A web browser tooltip displayed for a hyperlink. ...

Note that many phishing emails will include, as a real email from PayPal would, large warnings about never giving out your password in case of a phishing attack. Warning users of the possibility of phishing attacks, as well as providing links to sites explaining how to avoid or spot such attacks, are part of what makes the phishing email so deceptive. In this example, the phishing email warns the user that emails from PayPal will never ask for sensitive information. True to its word, it instead invites the user to follow a link to "Verify" their account; this will take them to a further phishing website, engineered to look like PayPal's website, and will there ask for their sensitive information.

Damage caused by phishing

The damage caused by phishing ranges from denial of access to e-mail to substantial financial loss. This style of identity theft is becoming more popular, because of the readiness with which unsuspecting people often divulge personal information to phishers, including credit card numbers, social security numbers, and mothers' maiden names. There are also fears that identity thieves can add such information to the knowledge they gain simply by accessing public records.^[40] Once this information is acquired, the phishers may use a person's details to create fake accounts in a victim's name. They can then ruin the victims' credit, or even deny the victims access to their own accounts.^[41] Identity theft is a term used to refer to fraud that involves stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be someone else. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion, because: If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page or at Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. ... Social security primarily refers to social welfare service concerned with social protection, or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. ... Credit as a financial term, used in such terms as credit card, refers to the granting of a loan and the creation of debt. ...

It is estimated that between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in the United States suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately US$929 million. United States businesses lose an estimated US$2 billion per year as their clients become victims.^[42] In 2007 phishing attacks escalated. 3.6 million adults lost US $ 3.2 billion in the 12 months ending in August 2007.^[43] In the United Kingdom losses from web banking fraud—mostly from phishing—almost doubled to £23.2m in 2005, from £12.2m in 2004,^[44] while 1 in 20 computer users claimed to have lost out to phishing in 2005.^[45]

The stance adopted by the UK banking body APACS is that "customers must also take sensible precautions ... so that they are not vulnerable to the criminal."^[46] Similarly, when the first spate of phishing attacks hit the Irish Republic's banking sector in September 2006, the Bank of Ireland initially refused to cover losses suffered by its customers (and it still insists that its policy is not to do so^[47]), although losses to the tune of €11,300 were made good.^[48] The Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) is the UK trade association for payment systems provided by financial institutions. ... My wife and I went to visit our daughter in the UK. I used my Ulster Bank credit card and wasnt charged any extra fees. ... For other uses, see Euro (disambiguation). ...

Anti-phishing

There are several different techniques to combat phishing, including legislation and technology created specifically to protect against phishing.

Social responses

One strategy for combating phishing is to train people to recognize phishing attempts, and to deal with them. Education can be effective, especially where training provides direct feedback.^[49] One newer phishing tactic, which uses phishing e-mails targeted at a specific company, known as spear phishing, has been harnessed to train individuals at various locations, including West Point Military Academy. In a June 2004 experiment with spear phishing, 80% of 500 West Point cadets who were sent a fake e-mail were tricked into revealing personal information.^[50] USMA redirects here. ...

People can take steps to avoid phishing attempts by slightly modifying their browsing habits. When contacted about an account needing to be "verified" (or any other topic used by phishers), it is a sensible precaution to contact the company from which the e-mail apparently originates to check that the e-mail is legitimate. Alternatively, the address that the individual knows is the company's genuine website can be typed into the address bar of the browser, rather than trusting any hyperlinks in the suspected phishing message.^[51] // A hyperlink, is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document that may be on a (different) website. ...

Nearly all legitimate e-mail messages from companies to their customers contain an item of information that is not readily available to phishers. Some companies, for example PayPal, always address their customers by their username in e-mails, so if an e-mail addresses the recipient in a generic fashion ("Dear PayPal customer") it is likely to be an attempt at phishing.^[52] E-mails from banks and credit card companies often include partial account numbers. However, recent research^[53] has shown that the public do not typically distinguish between the first few digits and the last few digits of an account number—a significant problem since the first few digits are often the same for all clients of a financial institution. People can be trained to have their suspicion aroused if the message does not contain any specific personal information. Phishing attempts in early 2006, however, used personalized information, which makes it unsafe to assume that the presence of personal information alone guarantees that a message is legitimate.^[54] Furthermore, another recent study concluded in part that the presence of personal information does not significantly affect the success rate of phishing attacks,^[55] which suggests that most people do not pay attention to such details. eBays North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPals corporate headquarters) PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. ...

The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry and law enforcement association, has suggested that conventional phishing techniques could become obsolete in the future as people are increasingly aware of the social engineering techniques used by phishers.^[56] They predict that pharming and other uses of malware will become more common tools for stealing information. The AntiPhishing Working Group (APWG) is a consortium that brings together businesses affected by phishing attacks, businesses that provide security products and law enforcement. ... Pharming (pronounced farming) is a crackers attack aiming to redirect a websites traffic to another, bogus website. ... A screenshot of a malicious website attempting to install spyware via an ActiveX Control in Internet Explorer 6 Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owners informed consent. ...

Technical responses

Anti-phishing measures have been implemented as features embedded in browsers, as extensions or toolbars for browsers, and as part of website login procedures. The following are some of the main approaches to the problem.

Helping to identify legitimate sites

Since phishing is based on impersonation, preventing it depends on some reliable way to determine a website's real identity. For example, some anti-phishing toolbars display the domain name for the visited website.^[57] The petname extension for Firefox lets users type in their own labels for websites, so they can later recognize when they have returned to the site. If the site is suspect, then the software may either warn the user or block the site outright. PetName Systems are naming systems that possess all three of naming properties - global, secure, and memorable [1]. Software that uses such a system can satisfy all three requirements. ...

Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites

Another popular approach to fighting phishing is to maintain a list of known phishing sites and to check websites against the list. Microsoft's IE7 browser, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, and Opera all contain this type of anti-phishing measure.^[58][59][60] Firefox 2 uses Google anti-phishing software. Opera 9.1 uses live blacklists from PhishTank and GeoTrust, as well as live whitelists from GeoTrust. Some implementations of this approach send the visited URLs to a central service to be checked, which has raised concerns about privacy.^[61] According to a report by Mozilla in late 2006, Firefox 2 was found to be more effective than Internet Explorer 7 at detecting fraudulent sites in a study by an independent software testing company.^[62] Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. ... Firefox redirects here. ... Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by the Norwegian Opera Software company. ... This article is about the corporation. ... PhishTank is a community based anti phishing service. ... VeriSign, Inc. ... VeriSign, Inc. ...

An approach introduced in mid-2006 involves switching to a special DNS service that filters out known phishing domains: this will work with any browser,^[63] and is similar in principle to using a hosts file to block web adverts. The hosts file is a computer file used to store information on where to find a node on a computer network. ...

To mitigate the problem of phishing sites impersonating a victim site by embedding its images (such as logos), several site owners have altered the images to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead send a warning image.^[64][65]

Augmenting password logins

The Bank of America's website^[66][67] is one of several that ask users to select a personal image, and display this user-selected image with any forms that request a password. Users of the bank's online services are instructed to enter a password only when they see the image they selected. However, a recent study suggests few users refrain from entering their password when images are absent.^[68][69] In addition, this feature (like other forms of two-factor authentication) is susceptible to other attacks, such as those suffered by Scandinavian bank Nordea in late 2005,^[70] and Citibank in 2006.^[71] Bank of America (NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648) is the largest commercial bank in the United States in terms of deposits, and the largest company of its kind in the world. ... An authentication factor is a piece of information and process used to authenticate or verify a persons identity for security purposes. ... Nordea is a financial services group operating in Northern Europe, based in Stockholm. ... Citibank is a major international bank, founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York. ...

Security skins^[72][73] are a related technique that involves overlaying a user-selected image onto the login form as a visual cue that the form is legitimate. Unlike the website-based image schemes, however, the image itself is shared only between the user and the browser, and not between the user and the website. The scheme also relies on a mutual authentication protocol, which makes it less vulnerable to attacks that affect user-only authentication schemes. Mutual authentication or two-way authentication refers to two parties authenticating each other suitably. ...

Eliminating phishing mail

Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their addressees' inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify phishing e-mails.^[74][75] A mail filter is a piece of software which takes an input of an email message. ... As a broad subfield of artificial intelligence, machine learning is concerned with the design and development of algorithms and techniques that allow computers to learn. At a general level, there are two types of learning: inductive, and deductive. ... Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. ...

Monitoring and takedown

Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down phishing websites.^[76] Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to both volunteer and industry groups,^[77] such as PhishTank.^[78] PhishTank is a community based anti phishing service. ...

Legal responses

On January 26, 2004, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed the first lawsuit against a suspected phisher. The defendant, a Californian teenager, allegedly created a webpage designed to look like the America Online website, and used it to steal credit card information.^[79] Other countries have followed this lead by tracing and arresting phishers. A phishing kingpin, Valdir Paulo de Almeida, was arrested in Brazil for leading one of the largest phishing crime rings, which in two years stole between US$18 million and US$37 million.^[80] UK authorities jailed two men in June 2005 for their role in a phishing scam,^[81] in a case connected to the U.S. Secret Service Operation Firewall, which targeted notorious "carder" websites.^[82] In 2006 eight people were arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of phishing fraud by creating bogus Yahoo Japan Web sites, netting themselves 100 million yen ($870,000 USD).^[83] The arrests continued in 2006 with the FBI Operation Cardkeeper detaining a gang of sixteen in the U.S. and Europe.^[84] is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... | logo_caption = | seal = US-FederalTradeCommission-Seal. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Organized crime. ... USSS redirects here. ... F.B.I. and FBI redirect here. ...

In the United States, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005 on March 1, 2005. The federal anti-phishing bill proposes that criminals who create fake web sites and send bogus e-mails in order to defraud consumers could be fined up to $250,000 and be jailed for up to five years.^[85] The UK strengthened its legal arsenal against phishing with the Fraud Act 2006,^[86] which introduces a general offence of fraud that can carry up to a ten year prison sentence, and prohibits the development or possession of phishing kits with intent to commit fraud.^[87] A senate is a deliberative body, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature. ... Patrick Joseph Leahy (born March 31, 1940) is the senior United States Senator from Vermont. ... The Anti-Phishing Act of 2005 (Long title: A bill to criminalize Internet scams involving fraudulently obtaining personal information, commonly known as phishing. ... is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A bill is a proposed new law introduced within a legislature that has not been ratified, adopted, or received assent. ... The Fraud Act 2006 (2006 c. ...

Companies have also joined the effort to crack down on phishing. On March 31, 2005, Microsoft filed 117 federal lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The lawsuits accuse "John Doe" defendants of obtaining passwords and confidential information. March 2005 also saw a partnership between Microsoft and the Australian government teaching law enforcement officials how to combat various cyber crimes, including phishing.^[88] Microsoft announced a planned further 100 lawsuits outside the U.S. in March 2006,^[89] followed by the commencement, as of November 2006, of 129 lawsuits mixing criminal and civil actions.^[90] AOL reinforced its efforts against phishing^[91] in early 2006 with three lawsuits^[92] seeking a total of $18 million USD under the 2005 amendments to the Virginia Computer Crimes Act,^[93][94] and Earthlink has joined in by helping to identify six men subsequently charged with phishing fraud in Connecticut.^[95] is the 90th day of the year (91st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties: Clallam, Clark, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, Pierce, San Juan, Skagit, Skamania, Snohomish, Thurston, Wahkiakum, and Whatcom. ... The name John Doe is generally used in the United States as a placeholder name for a male party in a legal action or legal discussion whose true identity is unknown. ... The Commonwealth of Australia is a federative constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. ... For other uses, see AOL (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... Official language(s) none (de facto English) Demonym Connecticuter or Connecticutian[2] Capital Hartford Largest city Bridgeport[3] Largest metro area Hartford Metro Area[4] Area  Ranked 48th in the US  - Total 5,543[5] sq mi (14,356 km²)  - Width 70 miles (113 km)  - Length 110 miles (177 km...

In January 2007, Jeffrey Brett Goodin of California became the first defendant convicted by a jury under the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. He was found guilty of sending thousands of e-mails to America Online users, while posing as AOL's billing department, which prompted customers to submit personal and credit card information. Facing a possible 101 years in prison for the CAN-SPAM violation and ten other counts including wire fraud, the unauthorized use of credit cards, and the misuse of AOL's trademark, he was sentenced to serve 70 months. Goodin had been in custody since failing to appear for an earlier court hearing and began serving his prison term immediately.^{[96][97][98][99]} The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (15 U.S.C. 7701, et seq. ... Wire fraud is a legal concept in the United States Code which provides for enhanced penalty of any criminally fraudulent activity if it is determined that the activity involved electronic communications of any sort, at any phase of the event. ...

See also

• Anti-phishing software
• Computer insecurity
• Confidence trick
• Defensive computing
• DomainKeys
• E-mail spoofing
• Pharming
• Rock Phish Kit
• Social engineering
• Vishing

Anti-phishing software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify phishing content contained in websites and e-mail. ... Many current computer systems have only limited security precautions in place. ... Scam and Confidence Man redirect here. ... Defensive Computing is a form of training for computer users to help reduce the risk of computing problems by avoiding dangerous computing practices. ... DomainKeys is an e-mail authentication system designed to verify the DNS domain of an E-mail sender and the message integrity. ... E-mail spoofing is a term used to describe fraudulent email activity in which the sender address and other parts of the email header are altered to appear as though the email originated from a different source. ... Pharming (pronounced farming) is a crackers attack aiming to redirect a websites traffic to another, bogus website. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Social engineering is the practice of obtaining confidential information by manipulation of legitimate users. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Notes

is the 265th day of the year (266th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... ... is the 293rd day of the year (294th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see 5th October (Serbia). ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 341st day of the year (342nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Anti-Phishing Working Group
• Bank Safe Online – Advice to UK consumers
• SecurityFocus – forensic examination of a phishing attack.
• Center for Identity Management and Information Protection – Utica College
• Plugging the "phishing" hole: legislation versus technology – Duke Law & Technology Review
• E-scams and Warnings Update – Federal Bureau of Investigation
• How the bad guys actually operate – Ha.ckers.org Application Security Lab
• Know Your Enemy: Phishing – Honeynet project case study
• The Phishing Guide: Understanding and Preventing Phishing Attacks – TechnicalInfo.net
• Global Phishing Summary Report – Real-time database of phishing activity.