Tree Rat Fishing » Phishing http://www.treeratfishing.com Windows Administration and Development. It's all about the tools and code. Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:52:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 PhishTank.. Out of the Net, into the Tank. http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/10/05/phishtank-out-of-the-net-into-the-tank/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/10/05/phishtank-out-of-the-net-into-the-tank/#comments Thu, 05 Oct 2006 23:50:56 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/10/05/phishtank-out-of-the-net-into-the-tank/

Education is one of the best ways to combat Phishing.  If you check your inbox, you could have an e-mail claiming to be from PayPal, eBay, or financial institution of choice wanting you to verify your password or personal information.   Chances are these are fake and someone is trying to get your personal information to do some very bad things.   Social engineering attacks like phishing seem to be the rage these days.

The staff at OpenDNS started providing a DNS service that is taking a step to protect you from some of these scams.   By changing your DNS Settings (on your PC or your gateway router) and using the OpenDNS servers you can avoid many of the scams that are out there on the ‘Net.  Any time OpenDNS detects that you are going to a phishing site, it blocks the request and sends you to a safe site letting you know that it just might have saved your butt.

But where do they get all that information?  This week they released PhishTank, a community supported site dedicated to keeping track of phishing sites.   From the site:

PhishTank is a collaborative clearing house for data and information about phishing on the Internet. Also, PhishTank provides an open API for developers and researchers to integrate anti-phishing data into their applications at no charge.

If you think you found a phishing site, they provide for a way for you to search to find out if someone has already reported it.   If it isn’t in the database, you can submit it (after you open an account).  Other users in the community system will verify if it is truly a phishing site.  Phishtank even gives you a way to track your submissions.

If you are a developer, they even provide a fairly straightforward API to use if you want to write a program that uses the Phishtank data.

If you aren’t using the OpenDNS DNS servers, I recommend changing to do so.  Instructions are available on their site.   If you choose to not use them and you have any question on if the site you are visiting is a phishing site, check them out on Phishtank.  The price is right and it could save you a lot of time and money.

 

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]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/10/05/phishtank-out-of-the-net-into-the-tank/feed/ 1 Vishing – the VoIP based phishing scam – alert http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/04/vishing-%e2%80%93-the-voip-based-phishing-scam-alert/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/04/vishing-%e2%80%93-the-voip-based-phishing-scam-alert/#comments Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:22:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=5
Vishing – the VoIP based phishing scam – alert

ITP.net – Dubai,United Arab Emirates

… that have been buzzing with talk about vishing, which exploits the low cost of VoIP and combines it with the social engineering aspects of phishing to extract …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/04/vishing-%e2%80%93-the-voip-based-phishing-scam-alert/feed/ 0 Phishers Hit The Phone Bank With Asterisk http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/phishers-hit-the-phone-bank-with-asterisk/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/phishers-hit-the-phone-bank-with-asterisk/#comments Fri, 04 Aug 2006 02:32:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=6

Phishers Hit The Phone Bank With Asterisk

InternetNews.com – USA
… security issues past and present. LAS VEGAS –- It wasn’t that long ago that phishing was an e-mail-only issue. But that has recently …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/phishers-hit-the-phone-bank-with-asterisk/feed/ 0 Computer with personal information stolen from Vassar Hospital http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/computer-with-personal-information-stolen-from-vassar-hospital/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/computer-with-personal-information-stolen-from-vassar-hospital/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:29:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=7

Computer with personal information stolen from Vassar Hospital

Mid-Hudson News – Newburgh,NY,USA

… she suggested that patients call the credit bureau to place a fraud alert on their credit cards and to be aware of people “phishing,” or calling for …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/computer-with-personal-information-stolen-from-vassar-hospital/feed/ 0 FBI teams up with IT industry on identity theft http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/fbi-teams-up-with-it-industry-on-identity-theft/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/fbi-teams-up-with-it-industry-on-identity-theft/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:27:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=8
FBI teams up with IT industry on identity theft

Techworld.com – London,UK
… “It’s sort of an evolution of what we’ve seen in the phishing area,” said Daniel Larkin, chief of the FBI’s Internet Complaint Center, speaking at the Black …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/fbi-teams-up-with-it-industry-on-identity-theft/feed/ 0 Building smarter authentication http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/building-smarter-authentication/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/building-smarter-authentication/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 11:24:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=9
Building smarter authentication

Computerworld Australia – Australia
… firewall, to machines in China and Taiwan. Phishing attacks such as this one are nothing new. Online scams that lure online banking …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/03/building-smarter-authentication/feed/ 0 IRS warns of e-mail phishing scam http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/irs-warns-of-e-mail-phishing-scam/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/irs-warns-of-e-mail-phishing-scam/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:18:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=10

IRS warns of e-mail phishing scam

UDaily – Newark,DE,USA
The phishing scam mimics an e-mal from the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS)–which allows businesses and individuals to pay their taxes online or …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/irs-warns-of-e-mail-phishing-scam/feed/ 0 AOL Offers Comprehensive Suite of Security Tools for Free to All … http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/aol-offers-comprehensive-suite-of-security-tools-for-free-to-all/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/aol-offers-comprehensive-suite-of-security-tools-for-free-to-all/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 03:09:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=11

AOL Offers Comprehensive Suite of Security Tools for Free to All …
Business Wire (press release) – San Francisco,CA,USA
… the National Cyber Security Alliance found that 81% of home PCs lack at least one of the three critical protections — updated computer virus software, spyware …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/aol-offers-comprehensive-suite-of-security-tools-for-free-to-all/feed/ 0 Symantec Readies Antifraudware App http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/symantec-readies-antifraudware-app/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/symantec-readies-antifraudware-app/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:30:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=12

Symantec Readies Antifraudware App
CIO Today – Woodland Hills,CA,USA
The recent super-sophisticated phishing attack against online payment service PayPal was yet more proof that the inability of antivirus and firewall tools to …

]]> http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/symantec-readies-antifraudware-app/feed/ 0 Huge botnet swamps UK firms with 8 million phishing emails http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/huge-botnet-swamps-uk-firms-with-8-million-phishing-emails/ http://www.treeratfishing.com/2006/08/02/huge-botnet-swamps-uk-firms-with-8-million-phishing-emails/#comments Wed, 02 Aug 2006 21:29:00 +0000 jeff.story http://www.treeratfishing.com/?p=13

Huge botnet swamps UK firms with 8 million phishing emails

VNUNet.com – UK
Security experts today warned that a single botnet is being used to bombard UK firms with millions of phishing emails. According …

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