Security threats Toolkit

Story: Banks under fire as phishing attacks accelerate

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Phisers use the web

Phishers are not stupid and although there is no way for them to know a bank has started using this technique it wouldn't take them too long to figure it out either by reading posts like this or from seeing how quick their sites are getting shut down.

Just like a trojan writer can't know what an anti-virus/firewall developer will do next to combat them they can see the success rate of their apps and adapt them and work out what they need to change. Phishers will do the same.

Fortunately they are not a threat to the tech savvy as following a few simple rules will help you avoid falling for phishing attacks such as checking for https in the address bar and that the URL is correct etc. I personally never follow a link to a login page from an email if it involves finances. I will type the domain in manually so I am sure I have gone to the correct site.

Phishers target the naive so I agree the banks should be doing more to help those ones - either by educating them about phishing or by actively searching for phishing sites and getting them taken down. It is foolish not to use every tool they can to help this includes working with browser developers so that their anti-phishing methods are followed up by getting the sites closed and not just flagged. And as the previous poster said checking logs to catch image leechers running Phishing sites.

If the bank is too lazy or under resourced to get phishing sites shut down at very least they can take steps to protect images so that cannot be leeched onto anysite like flickr does.

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