We are currently in the process ofcompiling the upcoming Symantec Internet Security Threat Report. I amputting together the phishing sections for the Asia-Pacific and Europe,Africa, and Middle East ISTRs. One of the things that we've noticed isthat there are several instances of very small countries hosting highnumbers of phishing Web sites. Obviously this raised the question ofwhy this would be.
After we'd gone through related data—bot-infected computers, spamzombies, phishing hosts, etc.—we couldn't come with any data that wouldexplain this emerging phenomenon. We asked ourselves what in thepolitical-economic profiles of these small nations would make themattractive for, or susceptible to, phishing Web sites, when one of ouranalysts pointed out that they are often used to host online gamblingsites. In part, this is because gambling sites that use real money (asopposed to free poker sites, for instance) are illegal in the UnitedStates. In other countries...
Earlier this afternoon in Italy hundreds ofthousands of people received an email from a “friend” stating(approximately) the following:
You’re under investigation! Hide everything and be quick!!!Your name appeared this morning together with 150 more persons on thewebsite of CAFF in Rome. Check it by yourself, you’re on January’slist: the website is the following: http://www.site.tld/caff/
The email is relatively convincing and Symantec believes many users have actually visited the Web site:
The Web site look and feel is very similar to other Italiangovernment Web sites and also the choice of the...
How many of us click on the links sent tous by trusted friends? Does the trust implicitly extend to the linksthey are sending? This trust is precisely what phishers take advantageof. Traditionally phishers have mainly used instant messaging (IM) andemail to take advantage of the average user. However, with the rise insocial networking sites the phishers have bought themselves a brand newplaying field.
Symantec has recently observed millions of user profiles of acertain social networking site carrying malicious links. Here is anexample of one of them:
The interesting thing here is that the malicious link appears to bea comment from a trusted friend. In most cases the trusted friend isnot the perpetrator behind these attacks. The most likely scenario isthat the trusted friend’s social networking...
It is surely of no surprise, especially toregular readers of our Weblog, that not only banks are targeted byphishing attacks, but nearly anything that can be scammed. We alreadycommented on the rise in attacks targeting virtual worlds andespecially massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) inearlier posts. The growing market for virtual currency and playeraccounts does attract new scammers. It’s the nature of things that ifsomething becomes popular to use, it will also become popular toattack.
There was no exclamation of surprise then (a.k.a. Wow!) when I sawthe latest phishing email for World of Warcraft. In general, itattempted to get a reaction from me by telling me that my account wastemorarly suspended and that I need to log in to verify my details.Well actually, I would rather not log in to unlock my account but hey,it’s their story, not mine.
