WebliminalBlog

The article CNN.com – Experts: ‘Phishing’ more sophisticated – Jan 20, 2005 at CNN mentions some new ways that thieves are using techniques related to phishing. The quote “If you think of phishers initially as petty thieves, now they’re more like an organized crime unit,” said Paris Trudeau also ties in with an online interview with Bruce Schneier produced by the New York Times. Schneier also mentions that the situation has moved from misguided hackers getting kicks to organized crime. The CNN article also mentions that attackers have taken to modifying an individual’s host file – the file that can be used to locally translate domain names to IP addresses, and there have been attempts to compromise domain name servers — computers that serve as the authority for IP addresses.

Here’s the lead from the article “Scam artists posed as banks and other legitimate businesses in thousands of phishing attacks last year, sending out millions of “spam” e-mails with subject lines like “account update needed” that pointed to fraudulent Web sites.”