Phishing Attacks Increase

Phishing Attacks Increase

Saw the following scary report today:

Anti-Phishing Working Group Announces Phishing Attack Sites Increased by 29% In November; Report Shows Smart Malcode Is Augmenting Social Engineering Phishing Attacks

This report mentions the involvement of organized crime in phishing scams, which somehow I had not heard about, although it doesn't surprise me. Until recently, I had been getting a fair number of phish spams -- several every week, anyway.

Now, however, the anti-spam system I use can filter out fraud spams as well as the garden variety of spam. I use Cloudmark's SafetyBar, formerly SpamNet. SpamNet is actually not just a software product -- it's a P2P network of over a million spam fighters who collectively identify and filter out spam. Although it has its downsides, it's still my favorite anti-spam tool, and I recommend it.

-- Al B. -- 12/15/04