Phishing: Microsoft, PayPal and the Cert-Lexsi partner to fight phishing
- Microsoft, PayPal and the Cert-Lexsi have opened a new website designed to allow Internet surfers to take part in phishing prevention. phishing-initiative.com, is dedicated to French speaking users and designed to enable them to submit websites that will later be checked quickly and manually by teams at Cert-Lexsi so as to update a database listing all risky websites (in about twenty minutes). Users are warned not to visit the concerned pages to check whether they represent a risk or not. In fact, it is explained that an increasing number of phishing websites try to infect their visitors with viruses.
- Web browsers then use this information to warn users off the concerned pages.
- According to Cert-Lexsi, it is now time to be especially watchful as an increasing number of phishing attempts have been reported (according to them, five times more in 2010), in addition, the attempts are becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to spot.
- A reent report published by BitDefender lists the most affected companies and indicates that the most used websites are Facebook, PayPal and Visa:
Top 10 phished institutions and services during H2 2010
Source : H2 2010 E-Threat Landscape Report -MALWARE, SPAM AND PHISHING TRENDS
Source : H2 2010 E-Threat Landscape Report -MALWARE, SPAM AND PHISHING TRENDS
- Only phishing attempts are to be reported on this new website. In order to fight spam, Internet users are asked to visit a dedicated website, Signal Spam.In addition, Signal Spam also announces it will meet other spam prevention players on the 14th of February 2011 in the Netherlands; this development fits in line with the European Commission’s orientations, and aim to improve the level of security for Internet users and companies. On the 22nd of November 2010, the European Commission and Council communicated the following:
- All Member States should ensure that people can easily report cybercrime incidents. This information, once evaluated, would feed into national and, if appropriate, the European cybercrime alert platform. (Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council)
- Also, in 2013, the Commission will “set up a real-time central pool of shared resources and best practices among Member States and the industry”.
- Let us note the indicators published by PandaLabs regarding the evolution of spam in 2010 and the rather disturbing figures below which persist despite the dismantlement of botnets such as Mariposa and Bredolad (the proportion of spam in e-mail traffic only decreases 10%, from 95% to 85%).
Total Email Traffic Volume
Source : appriver 2010 Year In Review
Top Ten Countries of Origin
Source : appriver 2010 Year In Review
Source : appriver 2010 Year In Review
Top Ten Countries of Origin
Source : appriver 2010 Year In Review