Fergie's Tech Blog

Outlook Bleak for Phishing Defeat

Matt Hines writes on the InfoWorld "Security Watch" Blog:

Everyone from the law enforcement community, to ISPs, to the very firms whose names are being tarnished by phishing attacks is trying to pitch in and help find a solution for the problem, but prospects for decreasing the prevalence of the threats remains daunting, according to the leader of one of the most high-profile efforts to do so.

David Jevans, the chairman of the nonprofit industry consortium the Anti-Phishing Working Group (and the CEO of encrypted USB drive specialist IronKey) said in a recent interview that as the phishing problem keeps "changing and getting worse" it has become clear that there are no simple answers to the issue.

Traditional mass-market phishing is still thriving despite the best efforts of ISPs and Webmail companies to filter out as much of the nefarious spam as possible -- as phishers continue to utilize the fast-flux model to evade pursuit, and even worse, targeted attacks are growing in complexity and popularity, Jevans said.

posted by Fergie @ 3/06/2008 08:49:00 PM