phishing

A new report finds that phishers are increasingly targeting online gamers. The report, which was released this past week by the Anti Phishing Work Group, says that phishing attacks targeting gamers increased from 2.7 per cent in September 2012 to ... 14.7 per cent in December. Phishing involves luring targets into giving up important personal information, such as a name, address, password, and credit card number. Usually phishers use fake web forms accessed via bogus emails to get people to give up this critical data. Virtual Items Exchanged for Real-World Cash So, why target video gamers? ... (view more)

In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic ... communication. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Recent ... (view more)

Those who tweet on Twitter can rest a little easier now that their social network medium is taking effective measures to keep phishing attacks (and cyber criminals in general) away from the site. The new service will scan all links to keep online ... goons from spreading their malware across the popular micro blogging destination. Once the service is launched, all links submitted to Twitter will be routed through the system so that malicious links can be detected. This will prevent users from clicking onto corrupt links under false pretenses. In a recent blog post, Del Harvey, director of the ... (view more)

Amidst news that thousands of Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo accounts have been compromised in recent weeks, there's some good news for the good guys: over a hundred phishers have been brought to justice in a multinational investigation spanning half the ... globe. Phishing involves using a fake web page to dupe visitors into entering their sensitive information, including passwords or credit card data. The phisher can then use that information to steal identities and clear out bank accounts. Operation Phish Phry The United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation yesterday revealed that it had charged ... (view more)

A security researcher claims a virus probably led to the compromising of 30,000 email passwords. However, most other sources continue to blame phishers. The email details appeared in two lists published by a user on a legitimate website designed for ... developers to share code. The first list included details of 10,000 Windows Live Hotmail accounts , while the second boasted 20,000 . Mary Landesman of ScanSafe says that while investigating a piece of malicious software in August she discovered the people controlling it had around 5,000 Hotmail user names and passwords which appeared to have been ... (view more)

Online payment processing giant PayPal has recently announced security measures that it will implement to protect customers from falling victim to phishing attacks. PayPal is particularly affected by these attacks, because the core of its business ... encompasses the transfer of funds, which presents a tempting target to criminals. Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief security officer, explained the company's plans to delegates meeting at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. (Source: zdnet.co.uk ) Barrett emphasized the need for cooperative action between individuals as well as companies ... (view more)

Do you think you've been a victim of a phishing scam? First of all, don't call or write us here at Infopackets! Unfortunately, we can't do anything for you, other than tell others to be careful! But here are some things you can do that will help ... ... Phishing is done through email and it is a big problem. In the past year alone, I have received thousands of emails that included huge lottery winnings from just about everyone in Europe, folks that were dying from cancer, car and plane crashes, and, of all things, tooth decay, part time job offers, and all sorts of "official" messages from ... (view more)

The most powerful and in most cases rich people in the United States are becoming lavish targets for online phishers. Emails disguised as reports from the Better Business Bureau, Internal Revenue Service, and random look-a-like business partners are ... fooling corporate executives, and it's costing them big. We can't blame the boss entirely, however. This most recent phishing campaign is a well-designed one, perhaps because of its well-respected and lucrative intended audience. The emails, typically packed with malware, carry few of the red flags associated with most phishing outbreaks of this ... (view more)

Independent security tests performed by CRN.com suggests that Windows Vista is only marginally more secure than Windows XP. CRN spent a week testing both operating systems against various Trojans, viruses and various exploits. The tests were ... performed with Windows Vista Business on an HP Compaq 6515b notebook with Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and an HP Compaq nc6400 with Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), both using the default security features and settings. Finjan's RUSafe sniffer tool (a security tool that sniffs live traffic and generates logs that can be analyzed to help protect you ... (view more)