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{{distinguish|pishing|fishing}}
[[Image:PhishingTrustedBank.png|right|300px|thumb|An example of a phishing e-mail, disguised as an official e-mail from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing secure information by "confirming" it at the ''phisher'''s website. Note the misspelling of the words ''received'' and ''discrepancy''. Such mistakes
| title=Phishing and Spamming via IM (SPIM)
| work=Internet Storm Centerregfbvtenbfrbfgbffggffd
| url=http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1905
| accessmonthday=December 5 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>
and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose [[URL]] and [[look and feel]] are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using [[SSL]] with strong cryptography for server authentication it is practically impossible to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of [[social engineering (computer security)|social engineering]] techniques used to fool users <ref>{{cite web
| author=Microsoft Corporation
| title=What is social engineering?
| url=http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/engineering.mspx
| accessmonthday=August 22 | accessyear=2007}}</ref>, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies <ref name="Jos2007">{{cite web
| author=J&oslash;sang, Audun ''et al.''
| title=Security Usability Principles for Vulnerability Analysis and Risk Assessment.
| work=Proceedings of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference 2007 (ACSAC'07)
| accessyear= 2007
| url=http://www.unik.no/people/josang/papers/JAGAM2007-ACSAC.pdf}}</ref>. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include [[legislation]], user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term "phishing" was made in 1996. The term is a variant of ''fishing'',<ref>{{cite web
| title=Spam Slayer: Do You Speak Spam?
| work=PCWorld.com
| url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,113431-page,1/article.html
| accessmonthday=August 16 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> probably influenced by ''[[phreaking]]'',<ref>{{cite web
| title="phishing, n." OED Online, March 2006, Oxford University Press.
| work=Oxford English Dictionary Online
| url=http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/30004304/
| accessmonthday=August 9 | accessyear=2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| title=Phishing
| work=Language Log, September 22, 2004
| url=http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001477.html
| accessmonthday=August 9 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>
and alludes to baits used to "catch" financial information and passwords.

==History and current status of phishing==
A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, in a paper and presentation delivered to the International [[Hewlett-Packard|HP]] Users Group, Interex.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Felix, Jerry and Hauck, Chris
| title=System Security: A Hacker's Perspective
| journal=1987 Interex Proceedings
| month=September | year=1987
| volume=1
| pages=6
}}</ref> The first recorded mention of the term "phishing" is on the alt.online-service.America-online [[Usenet]] [[newsgroup]] on January 2, 1996,<ref>{{cite web
| title="phish, v." OED Online, March 2006, Oxford University Press.
| work=Oxford English Dictionary Online
| url=http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/30004303/
| accessmonthday=August 9 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>
although the term may have appeared earlier in the print edition of the hacker magazine ''[[2600: The Hacker Quarterly|2600]]''.<ref>{{cite web | author=Ollmann, Gunter
| title=The Phishing Guide: Understanding and Preventing Phishing Attacks
| work=Technical Info
| url=http://www.technicalinfo.net/papers/Phishing.html
| accessmonthday=July 10 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>

===Early phishing on AOL===
Phishing on AOL was closely associated with the [[warez]] community that exchanged [[pirated software]] and the hacking scene that indulged in credit card fraud and other online crimes. After AOL brought in measures in late 1995 to prevent using fake, algorithmically generated [[credit card numbers]] to open accounts, AOL crackers resorted to phishing for legitimate accounts.<ref>{{cite web
| title=Phishing
| work=Word Spy
| url=http://www.wordspy.com/words/phishing.asp
| accessmonthday=September 28 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> and exploiting AOL.

A phisher might pose as an AOL staff member and send an [[instant message]] to a potential victim, asking him to reveal his password.<ref>{{cite news
| url=http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,9932,00.html
| last=Stutz
| first=Michael
| title=AOL: A Cracker's Paradise?
| date=January 29, 1998
| publisher=Wired News}}</ref> In order to lure the victim into giving up sensitive information the message might include imperatives like "verify your account" or "confirm billing information". Once the victim had revealed the password, the attacker could access and use the victim's account for fraudulent purposes or [[spam (electronic)|spamming]]. Both phishing and warezing on AOL generally required custom-written programs, such as [[AOHell]]. Phishing became so prevalent on AOL that they added a line on all instant messages stating: "no one working at AOL will ask for your password or billing information".

After 1997, AOL's policy enforcement with respect to phishing and warez became stricter and forced pirated software off AOL servers. AOL simultaneously developed a system to promptly deactivate accounts involved in phishing, often before the victims could respond. The shutting down of the warez scene on AOL caused most phishers to leave the service, and many phishers&mdash;often young teens&mdash;grew out of the habit.<ref>{{cite web
| title=History of AOL Warez
| url=http://www.rajuabju.com/warezirc/historyofaolwarez.htm
|''' accessmonthday=September 28 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>'''

===Transition from AOL to financial institutions===
The capture of AOL account information may have led phishers to misuse credit card information, and to the realization that attacks against online payment systems were feasible. The first known direct attempt against a payment system affected [[E-gold]] in June 2001, which was followed up by a "post-911 id check" shortly after the [[September 11, 2001 attacks|September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center]].<ref>{{cite web
| title=GP4.3 - Growth and Fraud - Case #3 - Phishing
| work=Financial Cryptography
| url=https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000609.html
| date=December 30, 2005}}</ref> Both were viewed at the time as failures, but can now be seen as early experiments towards more fruitful attacks against mainstream banks. By 2004, phishing was recognized as a fully industrialized part of the economy of crime: specializations emerged on a global scale that provided components for cash, which were assembled into finished attacks.<ref>{{cite web
| title=In 2005, Organized Crime Will Back Phishers
| work=IT Management
| url=http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/secu/article.php/3451501
| date=December 23, 2004}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| title=The economy of phishing: A survey of the operations of the phishing market
| work=First Monday
| url=http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/abad/
| month=September | year=2005}}</ref>

===Recent phishing attempts===
[[Image:Phishing chart.png|thumb|right|A chart showing the increase in phishing reports from October 2004 to June 2005]]
Phishers are targeting the customers of banks and online payment services. E-mails, supposedly from the [[Internal Revenue Service]], have been used to glean sensitive data from U.S. taxpayers.<ref>{{cite web
| title=Suspicious e-Mails and Identity Theft
| work=Internal Revenue Service
| url=http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=155682,00.html
| accessmonthday=July 5 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> While the first such examples were sent indiscriminately in the expectation that some would be received by customers of a given bank or service, recent research has shown that phishers may in principle be able to determine which banks potential victims use, and target bogus e-mails accordingly.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.browser-recon.info/
| title=Phishing for Clues
| date=September 15, 2005
| publisher=Indiana University Bloomington}}</ref> Targeted versions of phishing have been termed '''spear phishing'''.<ref>{{cite web
| title=What is spear phishing?
| work=Microsoft Security At Home
| url=http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/email/spear_phishing.mspx
| accessmonthday=July 10 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> Several recent phishing attacks have been directed specifically at senior executives and other high profile targets within businesses, and the term '''whaling''' has been coined for these kinds of attacks.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/whaling_expedition_continues/.
| last=Goodin
| first=Dan
| title=Fake subpoenas harpoon 2,100 corporate fat cats
| date=April 17, 2008
| publisher=The Register}}</ref>

[[Social network service|Social networking sites]] are a target of phishing, since the personal details in such sites can be used in [[identity theft]];<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,125956,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp
| last=Kirk
| first=Jeremy
| title=Phishing Scam Takes Aim at [[MySpace.com]]
| date=June 2, 2006
| publisher=IDG Network}}</ref> in late 2006 a [[computer worm]] took over pages on [[MySpace]] and altered links to direct surfers to websites designed to steal login details.<ref>{{cite web |
| title=Malicious Website / Malicious Code: MySpace XSS QuickTime Worm
| work=Websense Security Labs
| url=http://www.websense.com/securitylabs/alerts/alert.php?AlertID=708
| accessmonthday=December 5 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> Experiments show a success rate of over 70% for phishing attacks on social networks.<ref>{{cite web | author=Tom Jagatic and Nathan Johnson and Markus Jakobsson and Filippo Menczer
| title=Social Phishing
| work=To appear in the CACM (October 2007)
| url=http://www.indiana.edu/~phishing/social-network-experiment/phishing-preprint.pdf
| accessmonthday=June 3 | accessyear=2006|format=PDF}}</ref>

Almost half of phishing thefts in 2006 were committed by groups operating through the ''[[Russian Business Network]]'' based in [[St. Petersburg]].<ref>[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/10/12/ST2007101202661.html?hpid=topnews Shadowy Russian Firm Seen as Conduit for [[Cybercrime]]], by Brian Krebs, [[Washington post]], October 13, 2007</ref>

==Phishing techniques==
===Link manipulation===
Most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a [[Uniform Resource Identifier|link]] in an e-mail (and the [[website spoofing|spoofed website]] it leads to) appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Misspelled [[Uniform Resource Identifier|URLs]] or the use of subdomains are common tricks used by phishers. In the following example URL, <tt><nowiki>http://www.yourbank.example.com/</nowiki></tt>, it appears as though the URL will take you to the ''example'' section of the ''yourbank'' website; actually this URL points to the "''yourbank''" (i.e. phishing) section of the ''example'' website. Another common trick is to make the [[HTML element#Links and anchors|anchor text for a link]] appear to be valid, when the link actually goes to the phishers' site. The following example link, <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><tt>[[Deception|Genuine]]</tt></span>, appears to take you to an article entitled "Genuine"; clicking on it will in fact take you to the article entitled "Deception".

An old method of spoofing used links containing the <nowiki>'</nowiki>''@''<nowiki>'</nowiki> symbol, originally intended as a way to include a username and password (contrary to the standard).<ref>{{cite web | author=Berners-Lee, Tim
| title=Uniform Resource Locators (URL)
| work=IETF Network Working Group
| url=http://www.w3.org/Addressing/rfc1738.txt
| accessmonthday=January 28 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> For example, the link <tt><nowiki>http://www.google.com@members.tripod.com/</nowiki></tt> might deceive a casual observer into believing that it will open a page on <tt><nowiki>www.google.com</nowiki></tt>, whereas it actually directs the browser to a page on <tt>members.tripod.com</tt>, using a username of <tt><nowiki>www.google.com</nowiki></tt>: the page opens normally, regardless of the username supplied. Such URLs were disabled in [[Internet Explorer]],<ref>{{cite web
| author=Microsoft
| title=A security update is available that modifies the default behavior of Internet Explorer for handling user information in HTTP and in HTTPS URLs
| work=Microsoft Knowledgebase
| url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834489
| accessmonthday=August 28 | accessyear=2005}}</ref> while [[Mozilla Firefox]]<ref>{{cite web | author=Fisher, Darin
| title=Warn when HTTP URL auth information isn't necessary or when it's provided
| work=Bugzilla
| url=https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232567
| accessmonthday=August 28 | accessyear=2005}}</ref> and [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]] present a warning message and give the option of continuing to the site or cancelling.

A further problem with URLs has been found in the handling of [[Internationalized domain name]]s (IDN) in [[web browser]]s, that might allow visually identical web addresses to lead to different, possibly malicious, websites. Despite the publicity surrounding the flaw, known as [[Internationalized domain names#ASCII Spoofing and squatting concerns|IDN spoofing]]<ref>{{cite web
| author=Johanson, Eric
| title=The State of Homograph Attacks Rev1.1
| work=The Shmoo Group
| url=http://www.shmoo.com/idn/homograph.txt
| accessmonthday=August 11 | accessyear=2005}}</ref> or a [[IDN homograph attack|homograph attack]],<ref>{{cite journal | author=Evgeniy Gabrilovich and Alex Gontmakher
| title=The Homograph Attack
| journal=Communications of the ACM
| month=February | year=2002
| volume=45(2)
| pages=128
| url=http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~gabr/papers/homograph_full.pdf}}</ref> Phishers have taken advantage of a similar risk, using open [[URL redirector]]s on the websites of trusted organizations to disguise malicious URLs with a trusted domain.<ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/15/barclays_phish_scam/
| last=Leyden
| first=John
| title=Barclays scripting SNAFU exploited by phishers
| date=August 15, 2006
| publisher=The Register}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | author=Levine, Jason
| title=Goin' phishing with eBay
| work=Q Daily News
| url=http://q.queso.com/archives/001617
| accessmonthday=December 14 | accessyear=2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/12/phishing_redirection/
| last=Leyden
| first=John
| title=Cybercrooks lurk in shadows of big-name websites
| date=December 12, 2007
| publisher=The Register}}</ref>

===Filter evasion===
Phishers have used images instead of text to make it harder for anti-phishing filters to detect text commonly used in phishing e-mails.<ref>{{cite web
| author=Mutton, Paul
| title=Fraudsters seek to make phishing sites undetectable by content filters
| work=Netcraft
| url=http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/05/12/fraudsters_seek_to_make_phishing_sites_undetectable_by_content_filters.html
| accessmonthday=July 10 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>

===Website forgery===
Once a victim visits the phishing website the deception is not over. Some phishing scams use [[JavaScript]] commands in order to alter the [[URL bar|address bar]]. <ref>{{cite web
| author=Mutton, Paul
| title=Phishing Web Site Methods
| work=FraudWatch International
| url=http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/phishing-fraud/phishing-web-site-methods/
| accessmonthday=December 14 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> This is done either by placing a picture of a legitimate URL over the address bar, or by closing the original address bar and opening a new one with the legitimate URL.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3608943.stm
| title=Phishing con hijacks browser bar
| date=April 8, 2004
| publisher=BBC News}}</ref>

An attacker can even use flaws in a trusted website's own scripts against the victim.<ref>{{cite web
| author=Krebs, Brian
| title=Flaws in Financial Sites Aid Scammers
| work=Security Fix
| url=http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/06/flaws_in_financial_sites_aid_s.html
| accessmonthday=June 28 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> These types of attacks (known as [[cross-site scripting]]) are particularly problematic, because they direct the user to sign in at their bank or service's own web page, where everything from the [[URL|web address]] to the [[Transport Layer Security|security certificates]] appears correct. In reality, the link to the website is crafted to carry out the attack, although it is very difficult to spot without specialist knowledge. Just such a flaw was used in 2006 against [[PayPal]].<ref>{{cite web | author=Mutton, Paul
| title=PayPal Security Flaw allows Identity Theft
| work=Netcraft
| url=http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/06/16/paypal_security_flaw_allows_identity_theft.html
| accessmonthday=June 19 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>

A Universal [[Man-in-the-middle attack|Man-in-the-middle]] Phishing Kit, discovered by [[RSA Security]], provides a simple-to-use interface that allows a phisher to convincingly reproduce websites and capture log-in details entered at the fake site.<ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2082039,00.asp
| last=Hoffman
| first=Patrick
| title=RSA Catches Financial Phishing Kit
| date=January 10, 2007
| publisher=eWeek}}</ref>

To avoid anti-phishing techniques that scan websites for phishing-related text, phishers have begun to use [[Adobe Flash|Flash]]-based websites. These look much like the real website, but hide the text in a multimedia object.<ref>{{cite web | author=Miller, Rich
| title=Phishing Attacks Continue to Grow in Sophistication
| work=Netcraft
| url=http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/01/15/phishing_attacks_continue_to_grow_in_sophistication.html
| accessmonthday=December 19 | accessyear=2007}}</ref>

===Phone phishing===
Not all phishing attacks require a fake website. Messages that claimed to be from a bank told users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank accounts.<ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/186701001
| last=Gonsalves
| first=Antone
| title=Phishers Snare Victims With VoIP
| date=April 25, 2006
| publisher=Techweb}}</ref> Once the phone number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a [[Voice over IP]] service) was dialed, prompts told users to enter their account numbers and PIN. [[Vishing]] (voice phishing) sometimes uses fake caller-ID data to give the appearance that calls come from a trusted organization.<ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/voip/0,3800004463,39128854,00.htm
| title=Identity thieves take advantage of VoIP
| date=March 21, 2005
| publisher=Silicon.com}}</ref>

==Phishing examples==
===PayPal phishing example===
<!-- FAIR USE of Image:Paypal Phishing.png: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Paypal Phishing.png -->
[[Image:Paypal Phishing.png|thumb|An example of a phishing e-mail targeted at PayPal users]]

In an example [[PayPal]] phish (right), spelling mistakes in the e-mail and the presence of an [[IP address]] in the link (visible in the [[tooltip]] under the yellow box) are both clues that this is a phishing attempt. Another giveaway is the lack of a personal greeting, although the presence of personal details would not be a guarantee of legitimacy. A legitimate Paypal communication will always greet the user with his or her real name, not just with a generic greeting like, "Dear Accountholder." Other signs that the message is a fraud are misspellings of simple words, bad grammar and the threat of consequences such as account suspension if the recipient fails to comply with the message's requests.

Note that many phishing emails will include, as a real email from PayPal would, large warnings about never giving out your password in case of a phishing attack. Warning users of the possibility of phishing attacks, as well as providing links to sites explaining how to avoid or spot such attacks, are part of what makes the phishing email so deceptive. In this example, the phishing email warns the user that emails from PayPal will never ask for sensitive information. True to its word, it instead invites the user to follow a link to "Verify" their account; this will take them to a further phishing ''website'', engineered to look like PayPal's website, and will ''there'' ask for their sensitive information. You can report these phishing emails to PayPal directly. Remember not to use any of the links that your phishing email has provided.

===RapidShare Phishing===

On the [[RapidShare]] web host, phishing is common in order to get a premium account, which removes speed caps on downloads, auto-removal of uploads, waits on downloads, and cooldown times between downloads.

Phishers will obtain premium accounts for RapidShare by posting at warez sites with links to files on RapidShare. However, using link aliases like [[TinyURL]], they can disguise the real page's URL, which is hosted somewhere else, and is a look-a-like of RapidShare's "free user or premium user" page. If the victim selects free user, the phisher just passes them along to the real RapidShare site. But if they select premium, then the phishing site records their login before passing them to the download. Thus, the phisher has lifted the premium account information from the victim.

Phished RapidShare accounts are usually sold for cheaper prices in comparison to RapidShare's prices for a premium account.

The easiest way to find a RapidShare phishing page is using [[Mozilla Firefox]], right-click on the alias page and select "This Frame" > "Show only this frame." This reveals the real page, and you can see the URL would not be rapidshare.com.

==Damage caused by phishing==
The damage caused by phishing ranges from denial of access to e-mail to substantial financial loss. This style of [[identity theft]] is becoming more popular, because of the readiness with which unsuspecting people often divulge personal information to phishers, including [[credit card numbers]], [[social security]] numbers, and mothers' maiden names. There are also fears that identity thieves can add such information to the knowledge they gain simply by accessing public records.<ref>{{cite web | author=Virgil Griffith and Markus Jakobsson
| title= Messin' with Texas, Deriving Mother's Maiden Names Using Public Records
| work=ACNS '05
| url=http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/markus/papers/mmn.pdf
| accessmonthday=July 7 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> Once this information is acquired, the phishers may use a person's details to create fake accounts in a victim's name. They can then ruin the victims' [[credit (finance)|credit]], or even deny the victims access to their own accounts.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59349-2004Nov18
| last=Krebs
| first=Brian
| title=Phishing Schemes Scar Victims
| date=November 18, 2004
| publisher=washingtonpost.com}}</ref>

It is estimated that between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in the [[United States]] suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately US$929 million. United States businesses lose an estimated US$2 [[1,000,000,000 (number)|billion]] per year as their clients become victims.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.csoonline.com/talkback/071905.html
| last=Kerstein
| first=Paul
| title=How Can We Stop Phishing and Pharming Scams?
| date=July 19, 2005
| publisher=CSO}}</ref>
In 2007 phishing attacks escalated. 3.6 million adults lost US&nbsp;$&nbsp;3.2 billion in the 12 months ending in August 2007.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=565125
| last=McCall
| first=Tom
| title=Gartner Survey Shows Phishing Attacks Escalated in 2007; More than $3 Billion Lost to These Attacks
| date=December 17, 2007
| publisher=Gartner}}</ref>
In the [[United Kingdom]] losses from web banking fraud&mdash;mostly from phishing&mdash;almost doubled to £23.2m in 2005, from £12.2m in 2004,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=15013
| title=UK phishing fraud losses double
| date=March 7, 2006
| publisher=Finextra}}</ref> while 1 in 20 computer users claimed to have lost out to phishing in 2005.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/03/aol_phishing/
| last=Richardson
| first=Tim
| title=Brits fall prey to phishing
| date=May 3, 2005
| publisher=The Register}}</ref>

The stance adopted by the UK banking body [[APACS]] is that "customers must also take sensible precautions ... so that they are not vulnerable to the criminal."<ref>{{cite web | author=Miller, Rich
| title=Bank, Customers Spar Over Phishing Losses
| work=Netcraft
| url=http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/09/13/bank_customers_spar_over_phishing_losses.html
| accessmonthday=December 14 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> Similarly, when the first spate of phishing attacks hit the Irish Republic's banking sector in September 2006, the [[Bank of Ireland]] initially refused to cover losses suffered by its customers (and it still insists that its policy is not to do so<ref>[http://applications.boi.com/updates/Article?PR_ID=1430 Latest News<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>), although losses to the tune of [[euro|€]]11,300 were made good.<ref>[http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2163714/bank-ireland-backtracks Bank of Ireland agrees to phishing refunds &ndash; vnunet.com<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

==Anti-phishing==
There are several different techniques to combat phishing, including legislation and technology created specifically to protect against phishing.

===Social responses===
One strategy for combating phishing is to train people to recognize phishing attempts, and to deal with them. Education can be effective, especially where training provides direct feedback.<ref>{{cite web
| title=Protecting People from Phishing: The Design and Evaluation of an Embedded Training Email System
| work=Technical Report CMU-CyLab-06-017, CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University.
| month = November | year = 2006
| author = Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, Yong Woo Rhee, Alessandro Acquisti, Lorrie Cranor, Jason Hong and Elizabeth Nunge
| url=http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/files/cmucylab06017.pdf
| accessmonthday=November 14 | accessyear=2006|format=PDF}}</ref> One newer phishing tactic, which uses phishing e-mails targeted at a specific company, known as ''spear phishing'', has been harnessed to train individuals at various locations, including [[United States Military Academy|United States Military Academy]] at West Point, NY. In a June 2004 experiment with spear phishing, 80% of 500 West Point cadets who were sent a fake e-mail were tricked into revealing personal information.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112424042313615131-z_8jLB2WkfcVtgdAWf6LRh733sg_20060817,00.html?mod=blogs
| last=Bank
| first=David
| title='Spear Phishing' Tests Educate People About Online Scams
| date=August 17, 2005
| publisher=The Wall Street Journal}}</ref>

People can take steps to avoid phishing attempts by slightly modifying their browsing habits. When contacted about an account needing to be "verified" (or any other topic used by phishers), it is a sensible precaution to contact the company from which the e-mail apparently originates to check that the e-mail is legitimate. Alternatively, the address that the individual knows is the company's genuine website can be typed into the address bar of the browser, rather than trusting any [[hyperlink]]s in the suspected phishing message.<ref>{{cite web
| title=Anti-Phishing Tips You Should Not Follow
| work=HexView
| url=http://www.hexview.com/sdp/node/24
| accessmonthday=June 19 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>

Nearly all legitimate e-mail messages from companies to their customers contain an item of information that is not readily available to phishers. Some companies, for example [[PayPal]], always address their customers by their username in e-mails, so if an e-mail addresses the recipient in a generic fashion ("''Dear PayPal customer''") it is likely to be an attempt at phishing.<ref>{{cite web
| title=Protect Yourself from Fraudulent Emails
| work=PayPal
| url=https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_vdc-security-spoof-outside
| accessmonthday=July 7 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> E-mails from banks and credit card companies often include partial account numbers.
However, recent research<ref>{{cite web |
| title=What Instills Trust? A Qualitative Study of Phishing.
| author = Markus Jakobsson, Alex Tsow, Ankur Shah, Eli Blevis, Youn-kyung Lim.
| work = USEC '06
| url=http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/markus/papers/trust_USEC.pdf}}</ref> has shown that the public do not typically distinguish between the first few digits and the last few digits of an account number&mdash;a significant problem since the first few digits are often the same for all clients of a financial institution.
People can be trained to have their suspicion aroused if the message does not contain any specific personal information. Phishing attempts in early 2006, however, used personalized information, which makes it unsafe to assume that the presence of personal information alone guarantees that a message is legitimate.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://isc.incidents.org/diary.php?storyid=1194
| last=Zeltser
| first=Lenny
| title=Phishing Messages May Include Highly-Personalized Information
| date=March 17, 2006
| publisher=The SANS Institute}}</ref> Furthermore, another recent study concluded in part that the presence of personal information does not significantly affect the success rate of phishing attacks,<ref>{{cite web |
url=http://www2006.org/programme/item.php?id=3533
| title=Designing Ethical Phishing Experiments
| author=Markus Jakobsson and Jacob Ratkiewicz
| work=WWW '06}}</ref> which suggests that most people do not pay attention to such details.

The [[Anti-Phishing Working Group]], an industry and law enforcement association, has suggested that conventional phishing techniques could become obsolete in the future as people are increasingly aware of the social engineering techniques used by phishers.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/features/stories/126569.html
| last=Kawamoto
| first=Dawn
| title=Faced with a rise in so-called pharming and crimeware attacks, the Anti-Phishing Working Group will expand its charter to include these emerging threats.
| date=August 4, 2005
| publisher=ZDNet India}}</ref> They predict that [[pharming]] and other uses of [[malware]] will become more common tools for stealing information.

Everyone can help educate the public by encouraging safe practices, and by avoiding dangerous ones. Unfortunately, even well-known players are known to incite users to hazardous behaviour, e.g. by requesting their users to reveal their passwords for third party services, such as email.
<ref>
{{cite journal
| title = Social networking site teaches insecure password practices
| journal = blog.anta.net
| date = [[2008-11-09]]
| url = http://blog.anta.net/2008/11/09/social-networking-site-teaches-insecure-password-practices/
| issn = 1797-1993
| accessdate = 2008-11-09 }}
</ref>

===Technical responses===
Anti-phishing measures have been implemented
as features embedded in browsers,
as extensions or toolbars for browsers,
and as part of website login procedures.
The following are some of the main approaches to the problem.

====Helping to identify legitimate websites====
Most websites targeted for phishing are secure websites, meaning that [[SSL]] with strong cryptography is used for server authentication, where the website's URL is used as identifier. In theory it should be possible for the SSL authentication to be used to confirm the site to the user, and this was SSL v2's design requirement and the meta of secure browsing. But in practice, this is easy to trick.

The superficial flaw is that the browser's security user interface (UI) is insufficient to deal with today's strong threats. There are three parts to secure authentication using TLS and certificates: indicating that the connection is in authenticated mode, indicating which site the user is connected to, and indicating which authority says it is this site. All three are necessary for authentication, and need to be confirmed by/to the user.

'''Secure Connection.''' The standard display for secure browsing from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s was the padlock, which is easily missed by the user. Mozilla fielded a yellow URL bar in 2005 as a better indication of the secure connection. Unfortunately, this innovation was then reversed due to the EV certificates, which replaced certain high-value certificates with a green display, and other certificates with a white display.

'''Which Site.''' The user is expected to confirm that the domain name in the browser's URL bar was in fact where they intended to go. URLs can be too complex to be easily parsed. Users often do not know or recognise the URL of the legitimate sites they intend to connect to, so that the authentication becomes meaningless <ref name="Jos2007"/>. A condition for meaningful server authentication is to have a server identifier that is meaningful to the user; many ecommerce sites will change the domain names within their overall set of websites, adding to the opportunity for confusion. Simply displaying the domain name for the visited website <ref>{{cite web | author=Brandt, Andrew
| title=Privacy Watch: Protect Yourself With an Antiphishing Toolbar
| work=PC World &ndash; Privacy Watch
| url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/125739-1/article.html
| accessmonthday=September 25 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> as some some anti-phishing toolbars do is not sufficient.

An alternate approach is the [[petname]] extension for Firefox which lets users type in their own labels for websites, so they can later recognize when they have returned to the site. If the site is not recognised, then the software may either warn the user or block the site outright. This represents user-centric identity management of server identities <ref>{{cite web
| author=J&oslash;sangm Audun and Pope, Simon
| title=User Centric Identity Management
| work=Proceedings of AusCERT 2005
| accessyear=2008
| url=http://www.unik.no/people/josang/papers/JP2005-AusCERT.pdf}}</ref>. Some suggest that a graphical image selected by the user is better than a petname<ref>
[http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/2005-02/jibc_phishing.HTM "Phishing - What it is and How it Will Eventually be Dealt With"] by Ian Grigg 2005
</ref>.

With the advent of EV certificates, browsers now typically display the organisation's name in green, which is much more visible and is hopefully more consistent with the user's expectations. Unfortunately, browser vendors have chosen to limit this prominent display only to EV certificates, leaving the user to fend for herself with all other certificates.

'''Who is the Authority.''' The browser needs to state who the authority is that makes the claim of who the user is connected to. At the simplest level, no authority is stated, and therefore the browser is the authority, as far as the user is concerned. The browser vendors take on this responsibility by controlling a ''root list'' of acceptable CAs. This is the current standard practice.

The problem with this is that not all certification authorities (CAs) employ equally good nor applicable checking, regardless of attempts by browser vendors to control the quality. Nor do all CAs subscribe to the same model and concept that certificates are only about authenticating ecommerce organisations. ''Certificate Manufacturing'' is the name given to low-value certificates that are delivered on a credit card and an email confirmation; both of these are easily perverted by fraudsters. Hence, a high-value site may be easily spoofed by a valid certificate provided by another CA. This could be because the CA is in another part of the world, and is unfamiliar with high-value ecommerce sites, or it could be that no care is taken at all. As the CA is only charged with protecting its own customers, and not the customers of other CAs, this flaw is inherent in the model.

The solution to this is that the browser should show, and the user should be familiar with, the name of the authority. This presents the CA as a brand, and allows the user to learn the handful of CAs that she is likely to come into contact within her country and her sector. The use of brand is also critical to providing the CA with an incentive to improve their checking, as the user will learn the brand and demand good checking for high-value sites.

This solution was first put into practice in early IE7 versions, when displaying EV certificates <ref>[https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000645.html "Brand matters (IE7, Skype, Vonage, Mozilla)"] Ian Grigg</ref>. In that display, the issuing CA is displayed. (Need to update comment to modern IE7 display and IE8 betas.) This was an isolated case, however. There is resistance to CAs being branded on the chrome, resulting in a fallback to the simplest level above: the browser is the user's authority.

=====Fundamental Flaws in the Security Model of Secure Browsing=====
Experiments to improve the security UI have resulted in benefits, but have also exposed fundamental flaws in the security model. The underlying causes for the failure of the SSL authentication to be employed properly in secure browsing are many and intertwined.

'''Security before threat.''' Because secure browsing was put into place before any threat was evident, the security display lost out in the "real estate wars" of the early browsers. The original design of Netscape's browser included a prominent display of the name of the site and the CA's name, but these were dropped in the first release (need ref). Users are now highly experienced in not checking security information at all.

'''Click-thru Syndrome.''' However, warnings to poorly configured sites continued, and were not down-graded. If a certificate had an error in it (mismatched domain name, expiry), then the browser would commonly launch a popup to warn the user. As the reason was generally misconfiguration, the users learned to bypass the warnings, and now, users are accustomed to treat all warnings with the same disdain, resulting in ''Click-thru syndrome.'' For example, Firefox 3 has a 4-click process for adding an exception, but it has been shown to be ignored by an experienced user in a real case of MITM. Even today, as the vast majority of warnings will be for misconfigurations not real MITMs, it is hard to see how click-thru syndrome will ever be avoided.

'''Lack of Interest.''' Another underlying factor is the lack of support for virtual hosting. The specific causes are a lack of support for [[Server_Name_Indication]] in TLS webservers, and the expense and inconvenience of acquiring certificates. The result is that the use of authentication is too rare to be anything but a special case. This has caused a general lack of knowledge and resources in authentication within TLS, which in turn has meant that the attempts by browser vendors to upgrade their security UIs have been slow and lacklustre.

'''Lateral communications.''' The security model for secure browser includes many participants: user, browser vendor, developers, CA, auditor, webserver vendor, ecommerce site, regulators (e.g., FDIC), and security standards committees. There is a lack of communication between different groups that are committed to the security model. E.g., although the understanding of authentication is strong at the protocol level of the IETF committees, this message does not reach the UI groups. Webserver vendors do not prioritise the [[Server Name Indication]] (TLS/SNI) fix, not seeing it as a security fix but instead a new feature. In practice, all participants look to the others as the source of the failures leading to phishing, hence the local fixes are not prioritised.

Matters improved slightly with the CAB Forum, as that group includes browser vendors, auditors and CAs. But the group did not start out in an open fashion, and the result suffered from commercial interests of the first players, as well as a lack of parity between the participants. Even today, CAB forum is not open, and does not include representation from small CAs, end-users, ecommerce owners, etc.

'''Standards gridlock.''' Vendors commit to standards, which results in an outsourcing effect when it comes to security. Although there have been many and good experiments in improving the security UI, these have not been adopted because they are not standard, or clash with the standards. Threat models can re-invent themselves in around a month; Security standards take around 10 years to adjust.

'''Venerable CA Model.''' Control mechanisms employed by the browser vendors over the CAs have not been substantially updated; the threat model has. The control and quality process over CAs is insufficiently tuned to the protection of users and the addressing of actual and current threats. Audit processes are in great need of updating. The recent EV Guidelines documented the current model in greater detail, and established a good benchmark, but did not push for any substantial changes to be made.

====Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites====
Another popular approach to fighting phishing
is to maintain a list of known phishing sites
and to check websites against the list.
[[Internet Explorer|Microsoft's IE7 browser]],
[[Mozilla Firefox]] 2.0, and [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]]
all contain this type of anti-phishing measure.<ref>{{cite web | author=Franco, Rob
| title=Better Website Identification and Extended Validation Certificates in IE7 and Other Browsers
| work=IEBlog
| url=http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/11/21/495507.aspx
| accessmonthday=May 20 | accessyear=2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Bon Echo Anti-Phishing
| work=Mozilla
| url=http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/anti-phishing/
| accessmonthday=June 2 | accessyear=2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.3sharp.com/projects/antiphish/index.htm
| title=Gone Phishing: Evaluating Anti-Phishing Tools for Windows
| date=September 27, 2006
| accessdate=2006-10-20
| publisher=3Sharp
}}</ref> [[Firefox 2]] used [[Google]] anti-phishing software.
Opera 9.1 uses live blacklists from
[[Phishtank|PhishTank]] and [[GeoTrust]],
as well as live whitelists from [[GeoTrust]].
Some implementations of this approach
send the visited URLs to a central service to be checked,
which has raised concerns about privacy.<ref>{{cite web | title=Two Things That Bother Me About Google’s New Firefox Extension
| work=Nitesh Dhanjani on O'Reilly ONLamp
| url=http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2005/12/two_things_that_bother_me_abou.html
| accessmonthday=July 1 | accessyear=2007}}</ref> According to a report by Mozilla in late 2006, Firefox 2 was found to be more effective than Internet Explorer 7 at detecting fraudulent sites in a study by an independent software testing company.<ref>{{cite web
| title = Firefox 2 Phishing Protection Effectiveness Testing
| url = http://www.mozilla.org/security/phishing-test.html
| accessmonthday = January 23
| accessyear = 2007}}</ref>

An approach introduced in mid-2006 involves switching to a special DNS service that filters out known phishing domains: this will work with any browser,<ref>
{{cite web
| author = Higgins, Kelly Jackson
| title = DNS Gets Anti-Phishing Hook
| work = Dark Reading
| url = http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=99089&WT.svl=news1_1
| accessmonthday = October 8 | accessyear = 2006
}}</ref> and is similar in principle to using a [[hosts file]] to block web adverts.

To mitigate the problem of phishing sites impersonating a victim site by embedding its images (such as logos), several site owners have altered the images to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead send a warning image.<ref>{{cite news |
last=Krebs
| first=Brian
| url=http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/08/using_images_to_fight_phishing.html
| title=Using Images to Fight Phishing
| date=August 31, 2006
| publisher=Security Fix}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |
last=Seltzer
| first=Larry
| url=http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1630161,00.asp
| title=Spotting Phish and Phighting Back
| date=August 2, 2004
| publisher=eWeek}}</ref>

====Augmenting password logins====
The [[Bank of America]]'s website<ref>{{cite web
| author = Bank of America
| title = How Bank of America SiteKey Works For Online Banking Security
| url = http://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/sitekey/
| accessmonthday = January 23
| accessyear = 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071302181.html
| last=Brubaker
| first=Bill
| title=Bank of America Personalizes Cyber-Security
| date=July 14, 2005
| publisher=Washington Post}}</ref> is one of several
that ask users to select a personal image,
and display this user-selected image
with any forms that request a password.
Users of the bank's online services are instructed to enter a password
only when they see the image they selected.
However, a recent study suggests few users refrain
from entering their password when images are
absent.<ref>
{{cite web
| last = Stone | first = Brad
| title = Study Finds Web Antifraud Measure Ineffective
| url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/technology/05secure.html?ex=1328331600&en=295ec5d0994b0755&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
| publisher = New York Times
| accessmonthday = February 5 | accessyear = 2007
| date = February 5, 2007
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
| author = Stuart Schechter, Rachna Dhamija, Andy Ozment, Ian Fischer
| title = The Emperor's New Security Indicators: An evaluation of website authentication and the effect of role playing on usability studies
| url = http://www.deas.harvard.edu/~rachna/papers/emperor-security-indicators-bank-sitekey-phishing-study.pdf
| work = IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, May 2007
| accessmonthday = February 5 | accessyear = 2007
| month = May | year = 2007
|format=PDF}}</ref> In addition, this feature (like other forms of [[two-factor authentication]]) is susceptible to other attacks, such as those suffered by Scandinavian bank [[Nordea]] in late 2005,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=14384
| title=Phishers target Nordea's one-time password system
| date=October 12, 2005
| publisher=Finextra}}</ref> and [[Citibank]] in 2006.<ref>{{cite news |
last=Krebs
| first=Brian
| url=http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/07/citibank_phish_spoofs_2factor_1.html
| title=Citibank Phish Spoofs 2-Factor Authentication
| date=July 10, 2006
| publisher=Security Fix}}</ref>

Security skins<ref>
{{cite web
| author = Schneier, Bruce
| title = Security Skins
| work = Schneier on Security
| url = http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/security_skins.html
| accessmonthday = December 3 | accessyear = 2006
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web
| author = Rachna Dhamija, J.D. Tygar
| title = The Battle Against Phishing: Dynamic Security Skins
| url = http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~rachna/papers/securityskins.pdf
| work = Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) 2005
| accessmonthday = February 5 | accessyear = 2007
| month = July | year = 2005
|format=PDF}}</ref> are a related technique
that involves overlaying a user-selected image
onto the login form as a visual cue that the form is legitimate.
Unlike the website-based image schemes, however,
the image itself is shared only between the user and the browser,
and not between the user and the website. The scheme also relies on a [[mutual authentication]] protocol, which makes it less vulnerable to attacks that affect user-only authentication schemes.

====Eliminating phishing mail====
Specialized [[spam filter]]s can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their addressees' inboxes. These approaches rely on [[machine learning]] and [[natural language processing]] approaches to classify phishing e-mails.<ref>{{cite web
| work = NYS Cyber Security Symposium
| title = Phishing E-mail Detection Based on Structural Properties
| author = Madhusudhanan Chandrasekaran, Krishnan Narayanan, Shambhu Upadhyaya
| month = March | year = 2006
| url = http://www.albany.edu/iasymposium/2006/chandrasekaran.pdf
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| work = Carnegie Mellon University Technical Report CMU-ISRI-06-112
| title = Learning to Detect Phishing Emails
| author = Ian Fette, Norman Sadeh, Anthony Tomasic
| month = June | year = 2006
| url = http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/isri2006/CMU-ISRI-06-112.pdf
}}</ref>

====Monitoring and takedown====
Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down phishing websites.<ref>{{cite web |
| title=Anti-Phishing Working Group: Vendor Solutions
| work=Anti-Phishing Working Group
| url=http://www.antiphishing.org/solutions.html#takedown
| accessmonthday=July 6 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to both volunteer and industry groups,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1075406575;fp;2;fpid;1.
| last=McMillan
| first=Robert
| title=New sites let users find and report phishing
| date=March 28, 2006
| publisher=LinuxWorld}}</ref> such as [[PhishTank]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/10/phishtank.html |title=PhishTank |accessdate=2007-12-07 |last=Schneier |first=Bruce |authorlink=Bruce Schneier |coauthors= |date=2006-10-05 |work=Schneier on Security}}</ref>

===Legal responses===
On January 26, 2004, the U.S. [[Federal Trade Commission]] filed the first lawsuit against a suspected phisher. The defendant, a [[California]]n teenager, allegedly created a webpage designed to look like the [[America Online]] website, and used it to steal credit card information.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/21/phishing.scam/index.html
| last=Legon
| first=Jeordan
| title='Phishing' scams reel in your identity
| date=January 26, 2004
| publisher=CNN}}</ref> Other countries have followed this lead by tracing and arresting phishers. A phishing kingpin, Valdir Paulo de Almeida, was arrested in [[Brazil]] for leading one of the largest phishing [[criminal organization|crime rings]], which in two years stole between US$18 million and US$37 million.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/03/21/brazil_phishing_arrest/
| last=Leyden
| first=John
| title=Brazilian cops net 'phishing kingpin'
| date=March 21, 2005
| publisher=The Register}}</ref> UK authorities jailed two men in June 2005 for their role in a phishing scam,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.eweek.com/article2/0%2C1895%2C1831960%2C00.asp
| last=Roberts
| first=Paul
| title=UK Phishers Caught, Packed Away
| date=June 27, 2005
| publisher=eWEEK}}</ref> in a case connected to the [[United States Secret Service|U.S. Secret Service]] Operation Firewall, which targeted notorious "carder" websites.<ref>{{cite web | title=Nineteen Individuals Indicted in Internet 'Carding' Conspiracy
| url=http://www.cybercrime.gov/mantovaniIndict.htm
| accessmonthday=November 20 | accessyear=2005}}</ref> In 2006 eight people were arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of phishing fraud by creating bogus Yahoo Japan Web sites, netting themselves 100 million yen ($870,000 USD).<ref>{{cite news
| title=8 held over suspected phishing fraud
| date=May 31, 2006
| publisher=The Daily Yomiuri}}</ref> The arrests continued in 2006 with the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Operation Cardkeeper detaining a gang of sixteen in the U.S. and Europe.<ref>{{cite web | title=Phishing gang arrested in USA and Eastern Europe after FBI investigation
| url=http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/11/phishing-arrests.html
| accessmonthday=December 14 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>

In the [[United States]], [[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Patrick Leahy]] introduced the ''[[Anti-Phishing Act of 2005]]'' in [[United States Congress|Congress]] on March 1, 2005. This [[Bill (proposed law)|bill]], if it had been enacted into law, would have subjected criminals who created fake web sites and sent bogus e-mails in order to defraud consumers to fines of up to $250,000 and prison terms of up to five years.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60404811
| title=Phishers Would Face 5 Years Under New Bill
| date=March 2, 2005
| publisher=Information Week}}</ref>
The UK strengthened its legal arsenal against phishing with the [[Fraud Act 2006]],<ref>{{cite web | title=Fraud Act 2006
| url=http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/en2006/2006en35.htm
| accessmonthday=December 14 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> which introduces a general offence of fraud that can carry up to a ten year prison sentence, and prohibits the development or possession of phishing kits with intent to commit fraud.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/14/fraud_act_outlaws_phishing/
| title=Prison terms for phishing fraudsters
| date=November 14, 2006
| publisher=The Register}}</ref>

Companies have also joined the effort to crack down on phishing. On March 31, 2005, [[Microsoft]] filed 117 federal lawsuits in the [[United States District Court for the Western District of Washington|U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington]]. The lawsuits accuse "[[John Doe]]" defendants of obtaining passwords and confidential information. March 2005 also saw a partnership between Microsoft and the [[Government of Australia|Australian government]] teaching law enforcement officials how to combat various cyber crimes, including phishing.<ref>{{cite web | title=Microsoft Partners with Australian Law Enforcement Agencies to Combat Cyber Crime
| url=http://www.microsoft.com/australia/presspass/news/pressreleases/cybercrime_31_3_05.aspx
| accessmonthday=August 24 | accessyear=2005}}</ref> Microsoft announced a planned further 100 lawsuits outside the U.S. in March 2006,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39258528,00.htm
| last=Espiner
| first=Tom
| title=Microsoft launches legal assault on phishers
| date=March 20, 2006
| publisher=ZDNet}}</ref> followed by the commencement, as of November 2006, of 129 lawsuits mixing criminal and civil actions.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/23/ms_anti-phishing_campaign_update/
| last=Leyden
| first=John
| title=MS reels in a few stray phish
| date=November 23, 2006
| publisher=The Register}}</ref> [[AOL]] reinforced its efforts against phishing<ref>{{cite web | title= A History of Leadership - 2006
| url=http://corp.aol.com/whoweare/history/2006.shtml}}</ref> in early 2006 with three lawsuits<ref>{{cite web | title= AOL Takes Fight Against Identity Theft To Court, Files Lawsuits Against Three Major Phishing Gangs
| url=http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/newmedia/cb_press_view.cfm?release_num=55254535
| accessmonthday=March 8 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> seeking a total of $18 million USD under the 2005 amendments to the Virginia Computer Crimes Act,<ref>{{cite web | title=HB 2471 Computer Crimes Act; changes in provisions, penalty.
| url=http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?051+sum+HB2471
| accessmonthday=March 8 | accessyear=2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40578-2005Apr9.html
| last=Brulliard
| first=Karin
| title=Va. Lawmakers Aim to Hook Cyberscammers
| date=April 10, 2005
| publisher=Washington Post}}</ref> and [[Earthlink]] has joined in by helping to identify six men subsequently charged with phishing fraud in [[Connecticut]].<ref>{{cite web | title= Earthlink evidence helps slam the door on phisher site spam ring
| url=http://www.earthlink.net/about/press/pr_phishersite/
| accessmonthday=December 14 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>

In January 2007, Jeffrey Brett Goodin of California became the first defendant convicted by a jury under the provisions of the [[CAN-SPAM Act of 2003]]. He was found guilty of sending thousands of e-mails to America Online users, while posing as AOL's billing department, which prompted customers to submit personal and credit card information. Facing a possible 101 years in prison for the CAN-SPAM violation and ten other counts including [[wire fraud]], the unauthorized use of credit cards, and the misuse of AOL's trademark, he was sentenced to serve 70 months. Goodin had been in custody since failing to appear for an earlier court hearing and began serving his prison term immediately.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2085183,00.asp
| last=Prince
| first=Brian
| title=Man Found Guilty of Targeting AOL Customers in Phishing Scam
| date=January 18, 2007
| publisher=PCMag.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/17/aol_phishing_fraudster/
| last=Leyden
| first=John
| title=AOL phishing fraudster found guilty
| date=January 17, 2007
| publisher=The Register}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/13/aol_fraudster_jailed/
| last=Leyden
| first=John
| title=AOL phisher nets six years' imprisonment
| date=June 13, 2007
| publisher=The Register}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903450
| last=Gaudin
| first=Sharon
| title=California Man Gets 6-Year Sentence For Phishing
| date=June 12, 2007
| publisher=InformationWeek}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Anti-phishing software]]
*[[Computer insecurity]]
*[[Confidence trick]]
*[[Dancing pigs]]
*[[Defensive computing]]
*[[DomainKeys]]
*[[E-mail spoofing]]
*[[Pharming]]
*[[Rock Phish|Rock Phish Kit]]
*[[Social engineering (computer security)|Social engineering]]
*[[Vishing]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[http://www.antiphishing.org Anti-Phishing Working Group]
*[http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/ Bank Safe Online] &ndash; Advice to UK consumers
*[http://www.utica.edu/academic/institutes/cimip/ Center for Identity Management and Information Protection] – [[Utica College]]
*[http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm E-scams and Warnings Update] &ndash; [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]
*[http://atlas.arbor.net/summary/phishing Global Phishing Summary Report] &ndash; Real-time database of phishing activity.
*[http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20060609/how-phishing-actually-works/ How the bad guys actually operate] – Ha.ckers.org Application Security Lab
*[http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2005dltr0006.html Plugging the "phishing" hole: legislation versus technology] – ''[[Duke University School of Law|Duke Law & Technology Review]]''
*[http://www.honeynet.org/papers/phishing/ Know Your Enemy: Phishing] &ndash; [[Honeynet project]] case study
*[http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1745 SecurityFocus] &ndash; forensic examination of a phishing attack.
*[http://www.technicalinfo.net/papers/Phishing.html The Phishing Guide: Understanding and Preventing Phishing Attacks] – TechnicalInfo.net
*[http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/ Anti Phising Phil]&ndash; game helping users to identify phising attempts
{{featured article}}
{{Spamming}}

[[Category:Web security exploits]]
[[Category:Confidence tricks]]
[[Category:Computer crimes]]
[[Category:Deception]]
[[Category:Illegal occupations]]
[[Category:Internet fraud]]
[[Category:Security exploits]]
[[Category:Social engineering (computer security)]]
[[Category:Spamming]]
[[Category:Internet]]

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{{Internet memes}}

Revision as of 18:41, 14 November 2008

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