Understanding Phishing and Pharming
Phishing is a form of internet scam in which the attackers try to trick consumers into divulging sensitive personal information. The techniques usually involve fraudulent E-mail and web sites that impersonate both legitimate E-mail and web sites. The fraudulent E-mails can be considered a malicious form of unsolicited bulk E-mail generally known as “spam.” Consumers are vulnerable to identity theft and some financial losses through fraudulent transactions. Financial institutions are at risk for large numbers of fraudulent transactions using the stolen information. Phishing attacks are often very large-scale events that target thousands of consumers, or more, in the hope that a percentage will be tricked into responding. A relatively large percentage of recipients do respond to the E-mails since they appear legitimate and their authenticity cannot be checked easily. Estimates of the response rates vary between 1% and 20%, depending on the attack. Attackers can easily copy images, links, and text from legitimate web sites to make the Email appear authentic [KOPR]. Due to the scale of the attacks, there is the potential for huge financial loses. Some attacks involve one million or more phishing E-mails.
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