Going Phishing

[forwardone]

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday filed 117 federal lawsuits against unnamed defendants, accusing them of a high-tech form of identity theft known as "phishing."

The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, accuses the "John Doe" defendants of using mass e-mail or pop-up ads to coerce consumers into revealing personal information such as bank account information, passwords or social security numbers.

The Redmond-based software company said it filed the lawsuits in hopes of uncovering some of the largest operators.

In phishing scams, the Internet-based communications often purport to be from legitimate organizations, such as banks, and use that perception of a trusted relationship to get people to reveal personal information.

To avoid such identity theft, experts warn that users should be wary of giving out any personal information via e-mail or pop-up ads, especially if someone contacts them unexpectedly. Users also should be wary of clicking on e-mail links, which could divert a user to a malicious site that will then steal personal information. Geoff

[golddust]

And Microsoft is filing a lawsuit because...? I doubt that it filed the lawsuits in hopes of uncovering some of the largest operators....
but to interrogate those "phishers" using loopholes in its software so they can FIX IT.

[forwardone]

Typical of Microsoft`s reputation of always playing `catchup.`

Geoff

[forwardone]

Has anyone here downloaded the Anti-Phishing Toolbar from Netcraft? It`s described as a `neighbourhood watch` type of tool.

Along with other benefits, it:-
Clearly displays sites' hosting location, including country, helping you to evaluate fraudulent urls (e.g. the real citibank.com or barclays.co.uk sites are unlikely to be hosted in the former Soviet Union).

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/

Geoff

[FutureGizmo]

Here's a news story on Japan's first phishing arrest:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=25694

JAPAN: "Yafoo" site nets first "phishing" arrest

A computer-system engineer was arrested Monday on suspicion of creating a bogus version of Yahoo Japan Corp.'s Web site to steal personal information from users of the nation's largest portal site, police said.

It is the first arrest for "phishing" in Japan, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said.

Kazuma Yabuno, a 42-year-old Osaka resident, is facing charges of copyright violation and unauthorized access, after he allegedly created and ran a Web site that looked like Yahoo Japan's site -- except the main logo, according to the police.

[forwardone]

A double figure number of computers were confiscated by the police from his home.

I am pleasantly surprised by the relatively low number of people who fell for the scam, let`s hope his punishment puts others off from trying the same thing. Somehow I doubt that it`ll happen though.


About 70 people accessed the fake Web site in the month after the Web site opened in February. Of them, about 20 entered their accounts and passwords.

Geoff