‘Phishing’
or Internet scams involving theft of financial information on the
rise
Posted: 5 April 2004
Network Associates’ McAfee Research announces best
practices to help protect Middle East users against phishing scams
“We have noticed a substantial rise in incidents of ‘phishing’,
or Internet scams involving theft of financial information across
the globe,” said Patrick Hayati, Regional Director of Network
Associates in the Middle East. The term phishing refers to financial
fraud scams, usually through spam (bulk email), that try to get
enterprise users and consumers to submit their private financial
information such as passwords, Personal Information Numbers (PINs)
and other identifying or security information, and use it for the
fraudster’s advantage.
According to the recently published, ‘Phishing Attack Trends
Report’, by the Anti-phishing Working Group (APWG), phishing
attacks are increasing rapidly across the world. One hundred and
seventy-six unique new phishing attacks were reported in January
2004, amounting to 5.7 new attacks per day, indicating a 52 percent
increase over December 2003.
Network Associates, Inc., (NAI) the leading provider of intrusion
prevention solutions is devising a strategy to help consumers and
companies in the Middle East combat this growing threat.
The company’s technology research division, McAfee Research
has recently published ‘Anti-Phishing: Best Practices for
Institutions and Consumers’ a white paper that outlines anti-phishing
attacks and the best practices for minimizing their impact on both
institutions and consumers.
The white papers enlightens consumers on anti-spam and anti-virus
solutions, and other measures that can decreases vulnerability to
phishing.
“Phishing uses a combination of technical means and social
engineering to get consumers to trust fraudsters with private financial
information that can be later misused. The phisher’s techniques
usually involve fraudulent email and Web sites that impersonate
both legitimate email and Web sites. The most effective way to combat
this problem is to arm consumers with information on how to watch
out for this ‘phishing’ trap,” stated Hayati.
“While con artists and scammers have been around for centuries,
they generally depend on gaining the victim’s confidence in
order to be successful. With phishing scams, these attacks are usually
large-scale, targeting more than thousands of users on each try.
By educating both businesses and consumers about the different types
of phishing techniques, we can help them learn how best to minimize
these types of attacks and reduce their vulnerability to exposure,”
he continued.
“Users in the Middle East are especially vulnerable to phishing.
Firstly, the countries in the region have some of the highest per
capital income figures in the world, making them attractive for
fraudsters. Secondly, IT awareness is not very developed as a majority
of the population has only recently converted to Internet usage,
and thus many not be familiar with the anti-virus, content filtering
and anti-spam solutions available that can help protect them from
phishing,” concluded Hayati.
Phishing scams usually consist of a link to a Web site as their
'call to action', or ask the recipient to download a file that could
contain a malicious threat, such as a virus or Trojan.
The white paper published by McAfee Research acquaints users on
how to safeguard themselves from these sophisticated forms of attack.
The company also recommends using a strong gateway anti-virus scanning
device that can filter and block known phishing sites at the gateway.
McAfee’s gateway anti-spam filtering solutions can also help
end users automatically unwanted spam and phishing emails.
The McAfee Research whitepaper is available at www.networkassociates.com/us/products/mcafee/product_lit.htm
Network Associates, Inc. is a leading supplier of network security
and availability solutions. Network Associates comprises three product
groups: McAfee Security, delivering world-class anti-virus and security
products; Sniffer Technologies, a leader in network availability
and system security; and Magic Solutions, a leader in innovative
service management solutions.
For more informationsee http://www.networkassociates.com.
Posted by Richard Price,
Editor Pipeline Magazine
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