Phishing

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Not to be confused with Fishing or Pishing.

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

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Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent ("spoofed") message
designed to trick a human victim into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy
malicious software on the victim's infrastructure like ransomware. Phishing attacks have become
increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing the attacker to
observe everything while the victim is navigating the site, and transverse any additional security
boundaries with the victim.[1] As of 2020, phishing is by far the most common attack performed by
cyber-criminals, with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre recording over twice as many incidents
of phishing than any other type of computer crime.[2]

The first recorded use of the term "phishing" was in the cracking toolkit AOHell created by Koceilah
Rekouche in 1995, however it is possible that the term was used before this in a print edition of the
hacker magazine 2600.[3] [4] The word is a leetspeak variant of fishing (ph is a common replacement for
f ), probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish"
for users' sensitive information.[4][5][6]

Attempts to prevent or mitigate the impact of phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public
awareness, and technical security measures.[7]

Contents

1 Types

1.1 Email phishing

1.1.1 Spear phishing

1.1.2 Whaling and CEO fraud

1.1.3 Clone phishing

1.2 Voice phishing

1.3 SMS phishing

1.4 Page hijacking

2 Techniques

2.1 Link manipulation

2.2 Filter evasion

2.3 Social engineering

3 History

3.1 1980s

3.2 1990s

3.2.1 Early AOL phishing

3.3 2000s

3.4 2010s

4 Anti-phishing

4.1 User training

4.2 Technical approaches

4.2.1 Filtering out phishing mail

 4.2.2 Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites

4.2.3 Augmenting password logins

4.2.4 Monitoring and takedown

4.2.5 Transaction verification and signing

4.2.6 Multi-factor authentication

4.2.7 Email content redaction

4.2.8 Limitations of technical responses

4.3 Legal responses

5 See also

6 References

7 External links

Types

Email phishing

Most phishing messages are delivered by email, and are not personalized or targeted to a specific
individual or company–this is termed "bulk" phishing.[8] The content of a bulk phishing message varies
widely depending on the goal of the attacker–common targets for impersonation include banks and
financial services, email and cloud productivity providers, and streaming services.[9] Attackers may use
the credentials obtained to directly steal money from a victim, although compromised accounts are
often used instead as a jumping-off point to perform other attacks, such as the theft of proprietary
information, the installation of malware, or the spear phishing of other people within the target's
organization.[4] Compromised streaming service accounts are usually sold directly to consumers on
darknet markets.[10]

Spear phishing

Spear phishing involves an attacker directly targeting a specific organization or person with tailored
phishing emails.[11] This is essentially the creation and sending of emails to a particular person to make
the person think the email is legitimate. In contrast to bulk phishing, spear phishing attackers often
gather and use personal information about their target to increase their probability of success of the
attack.[12][13][14][15] Spear phishing typically targets executives or those that work in financial
departments that have access to the organization's sensitive financial data and services. A 2019 study
showed that accountancy and audit firms are frequent targets for spear phishing owing to their
employees' access to information that could be valuable to criminals.[16]

Threat Group-4127 (Fancy Bear) used spear phishing tactics to target email accounts linked to Hillary
Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. They attacked more than 1,800 Google accounts and implemented
the accounts-google.com domain to threaten targeted users.[17][18]

Whaling and CEO fraud

Whaling refers to spear phishing attacks directed specifically at senior executives and other high-profile
targets.[19] The content will be likely crafted to be of interest to the person or role targeted - such as a
subpoena or customer complaint.[20]

CEO fraud is effectively the opposite of whaling; it involves the crafting of spoofed emails purportedly
from senior executives with the intention of getting other employees at an organization to perform a
specific action, usually the wiring of money to an offshore account.[21] While CEO fraud has a
reasonably low success rate, criminals can gain very large sums of money from the few attempts that do
succeed. There have been multiple instances of organizations losing tens of millions of dollars to such
attacks.[22]

Clone phishing

Clone phishing is a type of phishing attack whereby a legitimate, and previously delivered email
containing an attachment or link has had its content and recipient address(es) taken and used to create
an almost identical or cloned email. The attachment or link within the email is replaced with a malicious
version and then sent from an email address spoofed to appear to come from the original sender. It may
claim to be a resend of the original or an updated version to the original. Typically this requires either
the sender or recipient to have been previously hacked for the malicious third party to obtain the
legitimate email.[23][24]

Voice phishing

Main article: Voice phishing

Voice phishing, or vishing,[25] is the use of telephony (often Voice over IP telephony) to conduct
phishing attacks. Attackers will dial a large quantity of telephone numbers and play automated
recordings - often made using text to speech synthesizers - that make false claims of fraudulent activity
on the victim's bank accounts or credit cards. The calling phone number will be spoofed to show the real
number of the bank or institution impersonated. The victim is then directed to call a number controlled
by the attackers, which will either automatically prompt them to enter sensitive information in order to
"resolve" the supposed fraud, or connect them to a live person who will attempt to use social
engineering to obtain information.[25] Voice phishing capitalizes on the lower awareness among the
general public of techniques such as caller ID spoofing and automated dialing, compared to the
equivalents for email phishing, and thereby the inherent trust that many people have in voice telephony.
[26]

SMS phishing

SMS phishing[27] or smishing[28] is conceptually similar to email phishing, except attackers use cell
phone text messages to deliver the "bait".[29] Smishing attacks typically invite the user to click a link, call
a phone number, or contact an email address provided by the attacker via SMS message. The victim is
then invited to provide their private data; often, credentials to other websites or services. Furthermore,
due to the nature of mobile browsers, URLs may not be fully displayed; this may make it more difficult to
identify an illegitimate logon page.[30] As the mobile phone market is now saturated with smartphones
which all have fast internet connectivity, a malicious link sent via SMS can yield the same result as it
would if sent via email. Smishing messages may come from telephone numbers that are in a strange or
unexpected format.[31]

Page hijacking

Page hijacking involves compromising legitimate web pages in order to redirect users to a malicious
website or an exploit kit via cross site scripting. A hacker may compromise a website and insert an
exploit kit such as MPack in order to compromise legitimate users who visit the now compromised web
server. One of the simplest forms of page hijacking involves altering a webpage to contain a malicious
inline frame which can allow an exploit kit to load. Page hijacking is frequently used in tandem with a
watering hole attack on corporate entities in order to compromise targets.[citation needed]

Techniques

Link manipulation

Most types of phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a link in an email appear
to belong to the organization the attackers are impersonating.[32] Misspelled URLs or the use of
subdomains are common tricks used by phishers. In the following example URL,
http://www.yourbank.example.com/, it can appear to the untrained eye as though the URL will take the
user to the example section of the yourbank website; actually this URL points to the "yourbank" (i.e.
phishing) section of the example website. Another common trick is to make the displayed text for a link
suggest a reliable destination, when the link actually goes to the phishers' site. Many desktop email
clients and web browsers will show a link's target URL in the status bar while hovering the mouse over it.
This behavior, however, may in some circumstances be overridden by the phisher.[33] Equivalent mobile
apps generally do not have this preview feature.[citation needed]

Internationalized domain names (IDNs) can be exploited via IDN spoofing[34] or homograph attacks,[35]
to create web addresses visually identical to a legitimate site, that lead instead to malicious version.
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.[36][37][38] Even digital certificates do
not solve this problem because it is quite possible for a phisher to purchase a valid certificate and
subsequently change content to spoof a genuine website, or, to host the phish site without SSL at all.[39]

Filter evasion

Phishers have sometimes used images instead of text to make it harder for anti-phishing filters to detect
the text commonly used in phishing emails.[40] In response, more sophisticated anti-phishing filters are
able to recover hidden text in images using optical character recognition (OCR).[41]

Social engineering

Most types of phishing involve some kind of social engineering, in which users are psychologically
manipulated into performing an action such as clicking a link, opening an attachment, or divulging
confidential information. In addition to the obvious impersonation of a trusted entity, most phishing
involves the creation of a sense of urgency - attackers claim that accounts will be shut down or seized
unless the victim takes an action.[42]

An alternative technique to impersonation-based phishing is the use of fake news articles designed to
provoke outrage, causing the victim to click a link without properly considering where it could lead. Once
on the attacker's website, victims can be presented with imitation "virus" notifications or redirected to
pages that attempt to exploit web browser vulnerabilities to install malware.[43]

History

1980s
A phishing technique was described in detail in a paper and presentation delivered to the 1987
International HP Users Group, Interex.[44]

1990s

The term "phishing" is said to have been coined by the well known spammer and hacker in the mid-90s,
Khan C. Smith.[45] The first recorded mention of the term is found in the hacking tool AOHell (according
to its creator), which included a function for attempting to steal the passwords or financial details of
America Online users.[46][47]

Early AOL phishing

Phishing on AOL was closely associated with the warez community that exchanged unlicensed software
and the black hat hacking scene that perpetrated credit card fraud and other online crimes. AOL
enforcement would detect words used in AOL chat rooms to suspend the accounts of individuals
involved in counterfeiting software and trading stolen accounts. The term was used because "<><" is the
single most common tag of HTML that was found in all chat transcripts naturally, and as such could not
be detected or filtered by AOL staff. The symbol <>< was replaced for any wording that referred to stolen
credit cards, accounts, or illegal activity. Since the symbol looked like a fish, and due to the popularity of
phreaking it was adapted as "Phishing". AOHell, released in early 1995, was a program designed to hack
AOL users by allowing the attacker to pose as an AOL staff member, and send an instant message to a
potential victim, asking him to reveal his password.[48] In order to lure the victim into giving up sensitive
information, the message might include imperatives such as "verify your account" or "confirm billing
information".[citation needed]

Once the victim had revealed the password, the attacker could access and use the victim's account for
fraudulent purposes. 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". A user using both an
AIM account and an AOL account from an ISP simultaneously could phish AOL members with relative
impunity as internet AIM accounts could be used by non-AOL internet members and could not be
actioned (i.e., reported to AOL TOS department for disciplinary action).[49][tone]. In late 1995, AOL
crackers resorted to phishing for legitimate accounts after AOL brought in measures in late 1995 to
prevent using fake, algorithmically generated credit card numbers to open accounts.[50] Eventually,
AOL's policy enforcement forced copyright infringement off AOL servers, and AOL promptly deactivates
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.[51]
2000s

2001

The first known direct attempt against a payment system affected E-gold in June 2001, which was
followed up by a "post-9/11 id check" shortly after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
[52]

2003

The first known phishing attack against a retail bank was reported by The Banker in September 2003.
[53]

2004

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.[54]

Phishing is recognized as a fully organized part of the black market. Specializations emerged on a
global scale that provided phishing software for payment (thereby outsourcing risk), which were
assembled and implemented into phishing campaigns by organized gangs.[55][56]

2005

In the United Kingdom losses from web banking fraud—mostly from phishing—almost doubled to
GB£23.2m in 2005, from GB£12.2m in 2004,[57] while 1 in 20 computer users claimed to have lost out to
phishing in 2005.[58]

2006

Almost half of phishing thefts in 2006 were committed by groups operating through the Russian
Business Network based in St. Petersburg.[59]

Banks dispute with customers over phishing losses. 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."[60] 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,[61]
although losses to the tune of €113,000 were made good.[62]

Phishers are targeting the customers of banks and online payment services. Emails, supposedly from
the Internal Revenue Service, have been used to glean sensitive data from U.S. taxpayers.[63] 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 emails accordingly.[64]
 Social networking sites are a prime target of phishing, since the personal details in such sites can be
used in identity theft;[65] in late 2006 a computer worm took over pages on MySpace and altered links
to direct surfers to websites designed to steal login details.[66]

2007

3.6 million adults lost US$3.2 billion in the 12 months ending in August 2007.[67] Microsoft claims
these estimates are grossly exaggerated and puts the annual phishing loss in the US at US$60 million.[68]

Attackers who broke into TD Ameritrade's database and took 6.3 million email addresses (though
they were not able to obtain social security numbers, account numbers, names, addresses, dates of
birth, phone numbers and trading activity) also wanted the account usernames and passwords, so they
launched a follow-up spear phishing attack.[69]

2008

The RapidShare file sharing site has been targeted by phishing to obtain a premium account, which
removes speed caps on downloads, auto-removal of uploads, waits on downloads, and cool down times
between uploads.[70]

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin facilitate the sale of malicious software, making transactions secure
and anonymous.[citation needed]

2009

In January 2009, a phishing attack resulted in unauthorized wire transfers of US$1.9 million through
Experi-Metal's online banking accounts.

In the third quarter of 2009, the Anti-Phishing Working Group reported receiving 115,370 phishing
email reports from consumers with US and China hosting more than 25% of the phishing pages each.[71]

2010s

Unique phishing reports by year [72] Year Campaigns

2005

173,063

2006

268,126

2007

327,814
2008

335,965

2009

412,392

2010

313,517

2011

284,445

2012

320,081

2013

491,399

2014

704,178

2015

1,413,978

2011

In March 2011, Internal RSA staff were successfully phished,[73] leading to the master keys for all
RSA SecureID security tokens being stolen, then subsequently used to break into US defense suppliers.
[74]

Chinese phishing campaigns targeted Gmail accounts of highly ranked officials of the United States
and South Korean governments and militaries, as well as Chinese political activists.[75][76]

2012

According to Ghosh, there were "445,004 attacks in 2012 as compared to 258,461 in 2011 and
187,203 in 2010”.

2013
 In August 2013, advertising service Outbrain suffered a spear-phishing attack and SEA placed
redirects into the websites of The Washington Post, Time, and CNN.[77]

In October 2013, emails purporting to be from American Express were sent to an unknown number
of recipients.[78]

In November 2013, 110 million customer and credit card records were stolen from Target customers,
through a phished subcontractor account.[79] CEO and IT security staff subsequently fired.[80]

By December 2013, Cryptolocker ransomware had infected 250,000 computers. According to Dell
SecureWorks, 0.4% or more of those infected likely agreed to the ransom demand.[81]

2014

In January 2014, the Seculert Research Lab identified a new targeted attack that used Xtreme RAT.
This attack used spear phishing emails to target Israeli organizations and deploy the piece of advanced
malware. Fifteen machines were compromised including ones belonging to the Civil Administration of
Judea and Samaria.[82][83][84][85][86][87][88]

In August 2014, the iCloud leaks of celebrity photos was found to be based on phishing e-mails sent
to the victims that looked like they came from Apple or Google, warning the victims that their accounts
might be compromised and asking for their account details.[89]

In November 2014, phishing attacks on ICANN gained administrative access to the Centralized Zone
Data System; also gained was data about users in the system - and access to ICANN's public
Governmental Advisory Committee wiki, blog, and whois information portal.[90]

2015

Charles H. Eccleston plead guilty[91][92] in an attempted spear-phishing when he attempted to

infect computers of 80 Department of Energy employees.

Eliot Higgins and other journalists associated with Bellingcat, a group researching the shoot down of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, were targeted by numerous spear phishing emails.[93][94]

In August 2015, Cozy Bear was linked to a spear-phishing cyber-attack against the Pentagon email
system causing the shut down of the entire Joint Staff unclassified email system and Internet access
during the investigation.[95][96]

In August 2015, Fancy Bear used a zero-day exploit of Java, in a spear phishing attack spoofing the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and launching attacks on the White House and NATO.[97][98]

2016

In February, Austrian aerospace firm FACC AG was defrauded of 42 million euros ($47 million) through
a BEC attack - and subsequently fired both the CFO and CEO.[99]
 Fancy Bear carried out spear phishing attacks on email addresses associated with the Democratic
National Committee in the first quarter of 2016.[100][101]

The Wichita Eagle reported "KU employees fall victim to phishing scam, lose paychecks" [102]

Fancy Bear is suspected to be behind a spear phishing attack in August 2016 on members of the
Bundestag and multiple political parties such as Linken-faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht, Junge Union
and the CDU of Saarland.[103][104][105][106]

In August 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency reported the receipt of phishing emails sent to users
of its database claiming to be official WADA, but consistent with the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear.
[107][108] According to WADA, some of the data the hackers released had been forged.[109]

Within hours of the 2016 U.S. election results, Russian hackers sent emails from spoofed Harvard
University email addresses,[110] using techniques similar to phishing to publish fake news targeted at
ordinary American voters.[111][112]

2017

In 2017, 76% of organizations experienced phishing attacks. Nearly half of information security
professionals surveyed said that the rate of attacks increased from 2016.

In the first half of 2017 businesses and residents of Qatar were hit with more than 93,570 phishing
events in a three-month span.[113]

A phishing email to Google and Facebook users successfully induced employees into wiring money –
to the extent of US$100 million – to overseas bank accounts under the control of a hacker. He has since
been arrested by the US Department of Justice.[114]

In August 2017, customers of Amazon faced the Amazon Prime Day phishing attack, when hackers
sent out seemingly legitimate deals to customers of Amazon. When Amazon's customers attempted to
make purchases using the "deals", the transaction would not be completed, prompting the retailer's
customers to input data that could be compromised and stolen.[115]

2018

In 2018, the company block.one, which developed the EOS.IO blockchain, was attacked by a
phishing group who sent phishing emails to all customers, aimed at intercepting the user's
cryptocurrency wallet key; and a later attack targeted airdrop tokens.[116]

Total number of unique phishing reports (campaigns) received, according to APWG[72] Year Jan
Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total

2005 12,845 13,468 12,883 14,411 14,987 15,050 14,135 13,776 13,562 15,820 16,882 15,244
173,063
2006 17,877 17,163 18,480 17,490 20,109 28,571 23,670 26,150 22,136 26,877 25,816 23,787
268,126

2007 29,930 23,610 24,853 23,656 23,415 28,888 23,917 25,624 38,514 31,650 28,074 25,683
327,814

2008 29,284 30,716 25,630 24,924 23,762 28,151 24,007 33,928 33,261 34,758 24,357 23,187
335,965

2009 34,588 31,298 30,125 35,287 37,165 35,918 34,683 40,621 40,066 33,254 30,490 28,897
412,392

2010 29,499 26,909 30,577 24,664 26,781 33,617 26,353 25,273 22,188 23,619 23,017 21,020
313,517

2011 23,535 25,018 26,402 20,908 22,195 22,273 24,129 23,327 18,388 19,606 25,685 32,979
284,445

2012 25,444 30,237 29,762 25,850 33,464 24,811 30,955 21,751 21,684 23,365 24,563 28,195
320,081

2013 28,850 25,385 19,892 20,086 18,297 38,100 61,453 61,792 56,767 55,241 53,047 52,489
491,399

2014 53,984 56,883 60,925 57,733 60,809 53,259 55,282 54,390 53,661 68,270 66,217 62,765
704,178

2015 49,608 55,795 115,808 142,099 149,616 125,757 142,155

146,439 106,421 194,499 105,233 80,548 1,413,978

2016 99,384 229,315 229,265 121,028 96,490 98,006 93,160 66,166 69,925
51,153 64,324 95,555 1,313,771

2017 96,148 100,932 121,860 87,453 93,285 92,657 99,024 99,172 98,012 61,322
86,547 85,744 1,122,156

2018 89,250 89,010 84,444 91,054 82,547 90,882 93,078 89,323 88,156 87,619 64,905 87,386
1,040,654

2019 34,630 35,364 42,399 37,054 40,177 34,932 35,530 40,457 42,273 45,057 42,424 45,072
475,369

"APWG Phishing Attack Trends Reports". Retrieved May 5, 2019.

Anti-phishing
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There are anti-phishing websites which publish exact messages that have been recently circulating the
internet, such as FraudWatch International and Millersmiles. Such sites often provide specific details
about the particular messages.[117][118]

As recently as 2007, the adoption of anti-phishing strategies by businesses needing to protect personal
and financial information was low.[119] Now there are several different techniques to combat phishing,
including legislation and technology created specifically to protect against phishing. These techniques
include steps that can be taken by individuals, as well as by organizations. Phone, web site, and email
phishing can now be reported to authorities, as described below.

User training

Frame of an animation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission intended to educate citizens about
phishing tactics.

People can be trained to recognize phishing attempts, and to deal with them through a variety of
approaches. Such education can be effective, especially where training emphasizes conceptual
knowledge[120] and provides direct feedback.[121][122]

Many organizations run regular simulated phishing campaigns targeting their staff to measure the
effectiveness of their training.

People can take steps to avoid phishing attempts by slightly modifying their browsing habits.[123] 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 email apparently originates to check that the email 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.[124]
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 emails, so if an email addresses the recipient in a generic fashion ("Dear
PayPal customer") it is likely to be an attempt at phishing.[125] Furthermore, PayPal offers various
methods to determine spoof emails and advises users to forward suspicious emails to their
[email protected] domain to investigate and warn other customers. However it is unsafe to assume
that the presence of personal information alone guarantees that a message is legitimate,[126] and some
studies have shown that the presence of personal information does not significantly affect the success
rate of phishing attacks;[127] which suggests that most people do not pay attention to such details.

Emails from banks and credit card companies often include partial account numbers. However, recent
research[128] 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.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group produces regular report on trends in phishing attacks.[129]

Google posted a video demonstrating how to identify and protect yourself from Phishing scams.[130]

Technical approaches

A wide range of technical approaches are available to prevent phishing attacks reaching users or to
prevent them from successfully capturing sensitive information.

Filtering out phishing mail

Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing emails that reach their addressees' inboxes.
These filters use a number of techniques including machine learning[131] and natural language
processing approaches to classify phishing emails,[132][133] and reject email with forged addresses.
[134]

Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites

Screenshot of Firefox 2.0.0.1 Phishing suspicious site warning

Another popular approach to fighting phishing is to maintain a list of known phishing sites and to check
websites against the list. One such service is the Safe Browsing service.[135] Web browsers such as
Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Safari 3.2, and Opera all contain this type of
anti-phishing measure.[136][137][138][139][140] Firefox 2 used Google anti-phishing software. Opera
9.1 uses live blacklists from Phishtank, cyscon 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.[141] 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.[142]

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,[143] and is similar in principle to using a hosts file to
block web adverts.

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.[144][145]

Augmenting password logins

The Bank of America website[146][147] is one of several that asks users to select a personal image
(marketed as SiteKey) and displays 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, several studies suggest that few users refrain from entering their passwords when
images are absent.[148][149] 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,[150] and
Citibank in 2006.[151]

A similar system, in which an automatically generated "Identity Cue" consisting of a colored word within
a colored box is displayed to each website user, is in use at other financial institutions.[152]

Security skins[153][154] 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.

Still another technique relies on a dynamic grid of images that is different for each login attempt. The
user must identify the pictures that fit their pre-chosen categories (such as dogs, cars and flowers). Only
after they have correctly identified the pictures that fit their categories are they allowed to enter their
alphanumeric password to complete the login. Unlike the static images used on the Bank of America
website, a dynamic image-based authentication method creates a one-time passcode for the login,
requires active participation from the user, and is very difficult for a phishing website to correctly
replicate because it would need to display a different grid of randomly generated images that includes
the user's secret categories.[155]

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.[156] Automated
detection of phishing content is still below accepted levels for direct action, with content-based analysis
reaching between 80 and 90% of success[157] so most of the tools include manual steps to certify the
detection and authorize the response.[158] Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to both
volunteer and industry groups,[159] such as cyscon or PhishTank.[160] Phishing web pages and emails
can be reported to Google.[161][162]

Transaction verification and signing

Solutions have also emerged using the mobile phone[163] (smartphone) as a second channel for
verification and authorization of banking transactions.

Multi-factor authentication

Organizations can implement two factor or multi-factor authentication (MFA), which requires a user to
use at least 2 factors when logging in. (For example, a user must both present a smart card and a
password). This mitigates some risk, in the event of a successful phishing attack, the stolen password on
its own cannot be reused to further breach the protected system. However, there are several attack
methods which can defeat many of the typical systems.[164] MFA schemes such as WebAuthn address
this issue by design.
Email content redaction

Organizations that prioritize security over convenience can require users of its computers to use an email
client that redacts URLs from email messages, thus making it impossible for the reader of the email to
click on a link, or even copy a URL. While this may result in an inconvenience, it does almost completely
eliminate email phishing attacks.

Limitations of technical responses

An article in Forbes in August 2014 argues that the reason phishing problems persist even after a decade
of anti-phishing technologies being sold is that phishing is "a technological medium to exploit human
weaknesses" and that technology cannot fully compensate for human weaknesses.[165]

Legal responses

File:Scam Watch 1280x720.ogvPlay media

Video instruction on how to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission

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.[166] 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.[167] UK authorities jailed two men in June 2005 for their role in a phishing scam,
[168] in a case connected to the U.S. Secret Service Operation Firewall, which targeted notorious
"carder" websites.[169] 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 (US$870,000).[170] The
arrests continued in 2006 with the FBI Operation Cardkeeper detaining a gang of sixteen in the U.S. and
Europe.[171]

In the United States, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005 in Congress on
March 1, 2005. This bill, if it had been enacted into law, would have subjected criminals who created fake
web sites and sent bogus emails in order to defraud consumers to fines of up to US$250,000 and prison
terms of up to five years.[172] The UK strengthened its legal arsenal against phishing with the Fraud Act
2006,[173] 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.[174]
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.[175] Microsoft announced a planned further 100
lawsuits outside the U.S. in March 2006,[176] followed by the commencement, as of November 2006, of
129 lawsuits mixing criminal and civil actions.[177] AOL reinforced its efforts against phishing[178] in
early 2006 with three lawsuits[179] seeking a total of US$18 million under the 2005 amendments to the
Virginia Computer Crimes Act,[180][181] and Earthlink has joined in by helping to identify six men
subsequently charged with phishing fraud in Connecticut.[182]

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 emails 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.[183][184][185][186]

See also

Law portal

Anti-phishing software

Brandjacking

In-session phishing – type of phishing attack

Internet fraud – A type of fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet to defraud victims

Penetration test – Method of evaluating computer and network security by simulating a cyber attack

SiteKey – web-based authentication service

SMS phishing

Typosquatting – Form of cybersquatting which relies on mistakes when inputting a website address
 List of cognitive biases – Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, many
abusable by phishing

Link farm

Mousetrapping

TrustRank

Clickjacking

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Phishing.

Anti-Phishing Working Group

Center for Identity Management and Information Protection – Utica College

Plugging the "phishing" hole: legislation versus technology Archived 2005-12-28 at the Wayback
Machine – Duke Law & Technology Review

Example of a Phishing Attempt with Screenshots and Explanations – StrategicRevenue.com

A Profitless Endeavor: Phishing as Tragedy of the Commons – Microsoft Corporation

Database for information on phishing sites reported by the public – PhishTank

The Impact of Incentives on Notice and Take-down − Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
(PDF, 344 kB)
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