New Pharming scam on the rise!24 March 2005
In a report from the Times, Pharming is replacing Phishing as the latest Internet bank scam.
Con artists or in this case - Pharmers - simply redirect as many users as possible from the legitimate commercial or banking websites and lead them to malicious ones. Users do not even know that they are being redirected to these sites, as the landing sites look exactly the same as the legitimate ones. But the danger is that when users enter their login name and password - criminals capture the information.
The difference between Phishing and Pharming is that where Phishers target individual users, Pharmers can scam as many victims as they want in one go. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and NatWest all feature in the attack list of the virus Troj/BankAsh-A virus which gets sent to victims as email attachments. The virus sits on your computer and redirects you to a bogus website when you try to visit your bank's site - and captures personal details in this way.
It is mainly the banks who have to find a way of proving their authenticity to users without username and password information. According to Computer Weekly, banks are currently testing secure electronic card readers where customers insert chip and Pin cards into a portable card reader and generate a one-time eight-digit passnumber to access banking and retail sites.
However, to keep yourself safe, refrain from opening any emails that appear to be from your bank or call them up to authenticate the email.
Zombies
Another cyber threat to appear on the scene is Zombies. Zombies are nothing more than regular desktop and notebook computers under remote control which criminals commonly use to automatically route vast quantities of spam or Phishing attacks. Main targets are small businesses and home workers.
Zombies affect businesses externally and internally. Externally, it increases spam, fraud and virus infections for everyone, as well as downtime for networks, servers and web sites. Internally, it leads to computer and network slowdowns and abuse complaints to service providers.
How to protect yourself: The best preventive measures you can take to avoid becoming a Zombie victim is to install a network firewall as well as a personal firewall. Have the latest version of your virus protection installed and regularly run anti -spyware software on your PC.
