Pharming More Lucrative Than Phishing
Pharming makes more bucks than phishing. Now, when I told my technology clueless husband this, he said, “Of course farming makes more money than fishing, you can cover a bigger area with a tractor than with a fishing pole.” I then had to explain what I was talking about.
Pharming is an expanded and harder to prevent version of phishing. For example, a pharmer sends an email message to you stating your bank account information needs to be updated. The message also contains a virus that installs small software programs on your computer. The bad thing is you don’t even have to click on anything to start the installation. Once installed, when you try to go to your bank’s real website the virus redirects you to a bogus site. Even if you type the correct address in your browser, it redirects you. You will not be able to tell the difference just by looking at the page because the thief has stolen all the graphics and programming and the pharming page looks legitimate.
According to US Netizen, “The pharmers’ second method takes advantage of the fact that Websites have alphanumeric names but reside at numeric addresses on the Internet…Pharmers interfere with that process by changing the real site’s numeric address to the fake site’s numeric address within the DNS server.”
Currently, only Windows based DNS servers are affected by the pharming schemes and Microsoft Windows has a patch available for the Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 servers. So, how can you guard against pharming on your computer?
Community Relations & Business Development Professional
sharon@ntown.com
Pharming is an expanded and harder to prevent version of phishing. For example, a pharmer sends an email message to you stating your bank account information needs to be updated. The message also contains a virus that installs small software programs on your computer. The bad thing is you don’t even have to click on anything to start the installation. Once installed, when you try to go to your bank’s real website the virus redirects you to a bogus site. Even if you type the correct address in your browser, it redirects you. You will not be able to tell the difference just by looking at the page because the thief has stolen all the graphics and programming and the pharming page looks legitimate.
According to US Netizen, “The pharmers’ second method takes advantage of the fact that Websites have alphanumeric names but reside at numeric addresses on the Internet…Pharmers interfere with that process by changing the real site’s numeric address to the fake site’s numeric address within the DNS server.”
Currently, only Windows based DNS servers are affected by the pharming schemes and Microsoft Windows has a patch available for the Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 servers. So, how can you guard against pharming on your computer?
- Call the company and verify they sent you the email.
- NEVER update account information via email.
- Install and religiously update your antivirus software.
- Use antispyware and have a secure firewall in place.
- Be suspicious, if something does not look right about the site, do not use it.
- Check out this list of popular websites that use secure login pages and the surprising list of those who do not: www.pharming.org.
Good resources:
McAfee
Norton/Symantec
Microsoft
PCWorld
US Netizen
Community Relations & Business Development Professional
sharon@ntown.com
posted by Sharon Cawood at 5:11 PM
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