By Ahmad Zaki

Introduction to Phishing
It is becoming increasingly common to tune in to the news
or load your favorite news Web site and read about yet
another Internet e-mail scam. An e-mail scam is a
fraudulent e-mail that appears to be from a legitimate
Internet address with a justifiable request — usually to
verify your personal information or account details. One
example would be if you received an e-mail that appears to
be from your bank requesting you click a hyperlink in the
e-mail and verify your online banking information. Usually
there will be a repercussion stated in the e-mail for not
following the link, such as "your account will be closed or
suspended". The goal of the sender is for you to disclose
personal and (or) account related information. This type of
e-mail scam is also called phishing.
 What is Phishing?

The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely

claiming to be an established legitimate Phishing, also referred
enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into to as brand spoofing or
surrendering private information that will be used carding, is a variation
for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to
visit a Web site where they are asked to update on "fishing“, the idea
personal information, such as passwords and being that bait is
credit card, social security, and bank account
numbers, that the legitimate organization thrown out with the
already has. The Web site, however, is bogus hopes that while most
and set up only to steal the user’s information. will ignore the bait,
some will be tempted
into biting.
 When and Where is Phishing
created?
The word phishing comes from the
analogy that Internet scammers are using
e-mail lures to fish for passwords and
financial data from the sea of Internet
users. The term was coined in 1996 by
hackers who were stealing AOL Internet
accounts by scamming passwords from
unsuspecting AOL users. Since hackers
have a tendency to replacing "f" with "ph"
the term phishing was derived.
Who is behind this Phishing?
The people behind phishing e-mails are scam
artists. They literally send out millions of these
scam e-mails in the hopes that even a few
recipients will act on them and provide their
personal and financial information. Anyone with
an e-mail address is at risk of being phished. Any
e-mail address that has been made public on the
Internet (posting in forums, newsgroups or on a
Web site) is more susceptible to phishing as the
e-mail address can be saved by spiders that
search the Internet and grab as many e-mail
addresses as they can. This is why phishing is
profitable for scammers; they can cheaply and
easily access millions of valid e-mail addresses to
send these scams to.
 How to spot Phishing?
At first glance, it may not be obvious to
the recipients that what is in their inbox is
not a legitimate e-mail from a company
with whom they do business. The "From"
field of the e-mail may have the .com
address of the company mentioned in the
e-mail, and the clickable link may also
appear to be taking you to the company's
Web site, but will in fact take you to a
spoof Web site. Looks can be deceiving,
but with phishing scams the e-mail is
never from who is appears to be!
 Phishing e-mails will
contain some of these
common elements:
(view screen capture
from Eudora)
 The "From Field" appears to be from the legitimate company mentioned in
the e-mail. It is important to note, however, that it is very simple to
change the "from" information in any e-mail client. While we're not going
to tell you how, rest assured it can be done in a matter of seconds!

 The e-mail will usually contain logos or images that have been taken from
the Web site of the company mentioned in the scam e-mail.

 The e-mail will contain a clickable link with text suggesting you use the
inserted link to validate your information. In the image you will see that
once the hyperlink is highlighted, the bottom left of the screen shows the
real Web site address to which you will go. Note that the hyperlink does
NOT point to the legitimate Citibank Web site URL.

 In this instance, the text you click is "here", However, this may also state
something like "Log-in to Citibank" or "www.citibank.com/secure" to be
even more misleading. This clickable area is only text and can be changed
to anything the sender wants it to read.

 Additionally, you may spot some of these elements that did not appear in
this particular scam:

  Logos that are not an exact match to the company's logo, spelling errors,
percentage signs followed by numbers or @ signs within the hyperlink,
random names or e-mail addresses in the body of the text, or even e-mail
headers which have nothing to do with the company mentioned in the e-
mail.
 Are there any new Phish?
The New Phish - Spear Phishing

As with all malicious code, once a small percentage of the

population starts to catch on, the perpetrators find ways to make
the attack a little different, and this case, make the phish harder to
net. The newest type of phishing scam is one that focuses on a
single user or a department within an organization. The Phish
appears to be legitimately addressed from someone within that
company, in a position of trust, and request information such as
login IDs and passwords. Spear phishing scams will often appear to
be from a company's own human resources or technical support
divisions and may ask employees to update their username and
passwords. Once hackers get this data they can gain entry into
secured networks. Another type of spear phishing attack will ask
users to click on a link, which deploys spyware that can steal data.
 Common (phish) Sense
After reading this far, I hope that you will be able to spot a phishing e-mail without
too much difficulty.

The golden rule to avoid being phished is to never ever click the links within the
text of the e-mail. Always delete the e-mail immediately. Once you have deleted
the e-mail then empty the trash box in your e-mail client as well. This will prevent
"accidental" clicks from happening as well. If, for some really odd reason you have
this nagging feeling that this could just possibly be a legitimate e-mail and nothing
can convince you otherwise, you still need to adhere to the golden rule and not click
the link in the message. For those truly worried that an account may be in jeopardy
if you do not verify your information, you need to open your Web browser program
of choice and type the URL to the Web site in the address field of your browser and
log on to the Web site as you normally would (without going through the e-mail link
as a quick route). This will provide you with accurate information about your
account and allow you to completely avoid the possibility of landing on a spoof Web
site and giving your information to someone you shouldn't.

Now that you know how to avoid being phished, there is still the question of what
to do about phishing e-mails should you be a recipient of them. First of all, you can
visit the Web site of the company from whom the e-mail appears to be from and
take the time to notify them of the suspicious e-mail. Many companies do want to
know if their company name is being used to try and scam people, and you'll find
scam and spoof reporting links within some of these Web sites. Additionally, you
can report phishing to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and depending on
where you live, some local authorities may also accept Internet phishing scam
reports. Lastly, you can also send details of a phishing scam to to the Anti-Phishing
Working Group who is building a repository/database of common scams to help
inform people of the risks.
 Reference

 www.Wikipedia.com

 www.webopedia.com