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AOL Trying To Net Phisherman
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-10-06
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
America Online (AOL) announced earlier in the week they aim to protect their millions of subscribers with new initiatives aimed at slapping down phishing attacks.
AOL says they end up blocking about 8 million phishing attacks every day and that phishing is one of the fastest growing forms of Internet crime. AOL's website has a section dedicated phishing scams with tips advice and other information.
They even listed the top 5 scams they're on to:
· eBay Scam
· PayPal Scam
· You've Got Pictures Scam
· AOL Billing Scam
· SunTrust Bank Scam
"The only difference between a phisher and a mugger is that a phisher uses a keyboard and not a gun," Tatiana Platt, AOL senior vice president and Chief Trust Officer told TechNewsWorld. "Phishing and identity theft crimes cost consumers billions of dollars each year, and we will do everything in our power to protect our members from the online criminals who would prey on them."
Phishing scams occur when some entity, either through email or phony websites, manages to get personal information like credit card number or social security number or even something simple like a name and address. They then use this information to do all kinds of things and it generally has to do with creating problems for consumers.
It's fairly fall for too. Emails often look official with a corporate logo and a form letter requesting a verification of a password or some other information. One visits the site and then that's it. It could be from a bank or something like eBay mentioned above.
The government in the form of the FTC charged Odysseus Marketing for something just like this. The FTC say Odysseus convinced people to download their software with some advertising and then load up someone's computer with spyware and other garbage and they couldn't get rid of it.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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