November 18, CRN — Phishing expected to increase during the holidays. With the holidays
approaching, phishers are expected to take increased advantage of the season to con their way
to the bank and credit accounts of computer users worldwide, an IT security vendor has warned.
Peter Croft, managing director at Clearswift Asia−Pacific, said spammers are expected to hit
Christmas shoppers particularly hard this November, December and January. “There
were similar things last Christmas, but I don’t think the technology for phishing was as
sophisticated as it is now or as widespread,” he said. Many people are inclined to let their
guard down over Christmas, said Croft. Lots of people send Christmas cards by e−mail and
many people regularly receive Christmas cards from people they barely remember, he said. A
phishing attack disguised as a Christmas card provides an ideal cover for a criminal trying to
get personal details from computer users, Croft noted. He said users no longer had to enter
details into a fake Website to be vulnerable to such a scam. Phishing has advanced to the point
where all a user has to do to expose himself or herself to an attack is open the e−mail or view it
in a preview pane, Croft said.
Source: http://www.itnews.com.au/storycontent.asp?ID=5&Art_ID=22535