PHISHING

DE F INITION

It is the act of tricking someone into giving confidential

information (like passwords and credit card information) on
a fake web page or email form pretending to come from a
legitimate company (like their bank).

For example: Sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an

established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into
surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

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EXAMPLES

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EXAMPLES

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EXAMPLES

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TYPES OF PHISHING

 Deceptive - Sending a deceptive email, in bulk, with a “call to action”

that demands the recipient click on a link.

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TYPES OF PHISHING

 Malware-Based - Running malicious software on the user’s machine.

Various forms of malware-based phishing are:

 Key Loggers & Screen Loggers

 Session Hijackers
 Web Trojans
 Data Theft

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TYPES OF PHISHING

 DNS-Based - Phishing that interferes with the integrity of the lookup

process for a domain name. Forms of DNS-based phishing are:
 Hosts file poisoning
 Polluting user’s DNS cache
 Proxy server compromise

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TYPES OF PHISHING

 Content-Injection – Inserting malicious content into legitimate site.

Three primary types of content-injection phishing:

 Hackers can compromise a server through a security

vulnerability and replace or augment the legitimate content with
malicious content.

 Malicious content can be inserted into a site through a cross-site

scripting vulnerability.

Malicious actions can be performed on a site through a SQL

injection vulnerability.

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TYPES OF PHISHING

 Man-in-the-Middle Phishing - Phisher positions himself between

the user and the legitimate site.

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TYPES OF PHISHING

 Search Engine Phishing - Create web pages for fake products, get
the pages indexed by search engines, and wait for users to enter their
confidential information as part of an order, sign-up, or balance transfer.

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CAUSES OF PHISHING

 Misleading e-mails
 No check of source address
 Vulnerability in browsers
 No strong authentication at websites of banks and financial
institutions
 Limited use of digital signatures
 Non-availability of secure desktop tools
 Lack of user awareness
 Vulnerability in applications
 … and more

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EFFECTS OF PHISHING

 Internet fraud
 Identity theft
 Financial loss to the original institutions
 Difficulties in Law Enforcement Investigations
 Erosion of Public Trust in the Internet.

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INDUSTRIES AFFECTED

Major industries affected are:

 Financial Services
 ISPs
 Online retailers

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PHISHING TRENDS

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PHISHING TRENDS

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

Educate application users

Think before you open
Never click on the links in an email , message boards or mailing lists
Never submit credentials on forms embedded in emails
Inspect the address bar and SSL certificate
Never open suspicious emails
Ensure that the web browser has the latest security patch applied
Install latest anti-virus packages
Destroy any hard copy of sensitive information
Verify the accounts and transactions regularly
Report the scam via phone or email.

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?
 Formulate and enforce Best practices

 Authorization controls and access privileges for systems,

databases and applications.
 Access to any information should be based on need-to-know
principle
 Segregation of duties.
 Media should be disposed only after erasing sensitive
information.

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

Reinforce application development / maintenance processes:

1. Web page personalization
 Using two pages to authenticate the users.
 Using Client-side persistent cookies.

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

2. Content Validation

 Never inherently trust the submitted data

 Never present the submitted data back to an application user
without sanitizing the same
 Always sanitize data before processing or storing
 Check the HTTP referrer header

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

3. Session Handling

 Make session identifiers long, complicated and difficult to guess.

 Set expiry time limits for the SessionID’s and should be checked for
every client request.
 Application should be capable of revoking active SessionID’s and not
recycle the same SessionID.
 Any attempt the invalid SessionID should be redirected to the login
page.
 Never accept session information within a URL.
 Protect the session via SSL.
 Session data should be submitted as a POST.
 After authenticating, a new SessionID should be used (HTTP & HTTPS).
 Never let the users choose the SessionID.

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

4. URL Qualification

 Do not reference redirection URL in the browser’s URL

 Always maintain a valid approved list of redirection url’s
 Never allow customers to supply their own URL’s
 Never allow IP addresses to be user in URL information

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

5. Authentication Process

 Ensure that a 2-phase login process is in place

 Personalize the content
 Design a strong token-based authentication

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

6. Transaction non-repudiation
 To ensure authenticity and integrity of the transaction

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HOW TO COMBAT PHISHING?

7. Image Regulation
 Image Cycling
 Session-bound images

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ORGANIZATIONS

 Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG)

The APWG has over 2300+ members from over 1500 companies &
agencies worldwide. Member companies include leading security
companies such as Symantec, McAfee and VeriSign. Financial Industry
members include the ING Group,VISA, Mastercard and the American
Bankers Association.

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WHAT DOES ALL THE ABOVE IMPLY?

It is better to be safer now than feel sorry later.

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REFERENCES

• http://www.antiphishing.org/reports/apwg_report_november_2006.pdf
• http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:-T6-
U5dhgYAJ:www.avira.com/en/threats/what_is_phishing.html+Phishin
g+consequences&hl=en&gl=in&ct=clnk&cd=7
• Phishing-dhs-report.pdf
• Report_on_phishing.pdf
• http://www.cert-in.org.in/training/15thjuly05/phishing.pdf
• http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html

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Questions?

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Thank You!

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