CAPTCHA, HOW IMPORTANT IT IS?

Amal A. AlSuwaidan
King Saud University
Riyadh, K.S.A
P.O Box 291772, Riyadh 11362
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Since browsing internet became a daily need for all people, which means it
should satisfies the security and accessibility issues. CAPTCHA became an
important part of internet browsing and it is used to prevent the bots illegal
access to the web sites. On the other hand, CAPTCHA is inaccessible,
especially for the blind persons, visually impaired or dyslexic. This paper is
about CAPTCHA and its history, advantages, applications, disadvantages and
future.
Keywords
Web accessibility, CAPTCHA accessibility, CAPTCHA and special needs people,
and CAPTCHA alternatives.
.INTRODUCTION:
In this paper I will talk about CAPTCHA and some its related issues. At first I
will talk about CAPTCHA history and related work. Then I will talk about how
to create CAPTCHA and how does CAPTCHA work. After that I will show
CAPTCHA benefits. Then I will discuss the CAPTCHA accessibility survey.
After that I will talk about CAPTCHA accessibility and brief discussing about
some CAPTCHA alternatives. Finally, I will talk about CAPTCHA future.

2.CAPTCHA BACKGROUND AND RELATED WORK:

Bots are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet.
Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive at
a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone. Some kinds of
bots are harmful when attacked a web site. In 1996, Moni Naor discuses
several ways to verify that a request comes from a human and not bots. In his
paper "Verification of a human in the loop or Identification via the Turing Test".
Then in 1997, Primitive CAPTCHAs produced at AltaVista by Andrei Broder
and his colleagues to prevent bots from adding URLs to their search engine.
CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell
Computers and Humans Apart.". Then, in 2000, Luis von Ahn and Manuel
Blum coined the term 'CAPTCHA', improved and publicized the notion, which
included any program that can distinguish humans from computers. They
invented multiple examples of CAPTCHAs, including the first CAPTCHAs to
be widely used, which were those adopted by Yahoo! but the trademark
application was abandoned on 21 April 2008 [1].
The CAPTCHA can be described as a picture contains distorted letters to
ensure that the user is a human not bots. These pictures can not be read by
bots because CAPTCHA is resistant to OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
e.g. (see figure 1 and figure 2).

.FUTURE OF CAPTCHA:
A lot of CAPTCHA alternatives are provided. Therefore, a lot of web sites
replace the CAPTCHA with some alternative. Most of CAPTCHA alternatives
are accessible and easy to use. In the CAPTCHA accessibility survey 23.73%
of responders said they are not using CAPTCHA in their web site. CAPTCHA
could disappear in the coming few years because it is inaccessible and facing
a hard challenge with accessible alternatives. We hope CAPTCHA creator
find some way to make CAPTCHA accessible. In fact, I think CAPTCHA will
disappear before they can make it accessible.
Benefit

CAPTCHA security services:

CAPTCHA provides several services in security, including:
•
Preventing Comment Spam in Blogs.
CAPCHA prevents spam replays without asking the user to sign up.
•
Protecting Website Registration.
Ensure that the users who sign up for free services such email are human not bots.
•
Protecting Email Addresses from Scrapers.
CAPTCHA hide the email address and asked the users to enter the text in the picture
to show the email.
This help to prevent scrapers from sending to the emails.
•
Online Polls.
In online poll asking bots can vote thousand of times. CAPTCHA allows humans only
to vote.
•
Preventing Dictionary Attacks.

CAPTCHAs can also be used to prevent dictionary attacks in password.

The idea is simple: prevent a computer from being able to iterate through
the entire space of passwords systems by requiring it to solve a CAPTCHA
after a certain number of unsuccessful logins.
•
Search Engine Bots.
Since, search engine bots are usually belong to large companies, respect web pages
that don't want to allow
them in. However, in order to truly guarantee that bots won't enter a web site,
CAPTCHAs are needed.
•
Worms and Spam
CAPTCHA protects email from worm and spam by ensuring that the sender is a
human not bot.

DEMERITS
Ok, i agree
pids part & should look into making the game more fair for everyone!
it a good way to stop automation programs, but i also think its a
bad thing to introduce on this game. Yes its a good way to sort
human from non human activity but it also sets people at a
disadvantage & here is why..

Captcha's are a typing form of security & relies completely on the

typing skills of its players & how fast they can type. 95% of the
games at large revolve around keyboard arrow keys & the mouse
as this is known to be the most easiest, comfortable & widely
used methods of gaming. So to introduce a typing part which
effects the ability of players within outwar to perform & progress
is a bad thing.

I know many people who give up because there not good at

typing or comfortable using a keyboard as others are, this is the
disadvantage as its separating the fast type & the slow at typing.
If this is the new permanent norm then they should clearly
highlight on sign up that this game requires a moderate level of
typing skills.

Maybe they should go back to click & not type because this is
clearly showing a divide to many of its players, they can still use
captcha's but also give a box of words below on the one that
matches which fill's in the box for them. I know this is becoming
well used on some sites where its users have disabilities like one
arm, poor eye sight & so forth.

The presumption everyone can compete at the same level that

needs a moderate level of typing skills is a clear mistaken
presumption on ram

PHISHING
MEANING
(fish´ing) (n.) The act of 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. The e-
mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update
personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security,
and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has.
The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user??s
information.

For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users
received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user??s account
was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and
updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had.
Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate
organizations site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on
people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by
eBay and were subsequently going to eBay??s site to update their account
information. By spamming large groups of people, the "phisher" counted on
the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed
credit card numbers with eBay legitimately.

Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on

"fishing," the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while
most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.

- Phishing is an e-mail fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out

legitimate-looking email in an attempt to gather personal and financial
information from recipients. Typically, the messages appear to come from well
known and trustworthy Web sites. Web sites that are frequently spoofed by
phishers include PayPal, eBay, MSN, Yahoo, BestBuy, and America Online. A
phishing expedition, like the fishing expedition it's named for, is a speculative
venture: the phisher puts the lure hoping to fool at least a few of the prey that
encounter the bait.

Phishers use a number of different social engineering and e-mail spoofing ploys to
try to trick their victims. In one fairly typical case before the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC), a 17-year-old male sent out messages purporting to be from
America Online that said there had been a billing problem with recipients' AOL
accounts. The perpetrator's e-mail used AOL logos and contained legitimate links.
If recipients clicked on the "AOL Billing Center" link, however, they were taken to
a spoofed AOL Web page that asked for personal information, including credit
card numbers, personal identification numbers (PINs), social security numbers,
banking numbers, and passwords. This information was used for identity theft.

The FTC warns users to be suspicious of any official-looking e-mail message that
asks for updates on personal or financial information and urges recipients to go
directly to the organization's Web site to find out whether the request is legitimate.
If you suspect you have been phished, forward the e-mail to [email protected] or call
the FTC help line, 1-877-FTC-HELP.

Anti-Phishing Working Group

Our mission is to provide a resource for information on the problem and solutions
for phishing and email fraud.
www.antiphishing.org/

OnGuard Online - Phishing

Phishing section of an informational website run by the US Federal Trade
Commission. Offers advice on how to spot, avoid and report phishing attacks.
onguardonline.gov/phishing.html

Recognize phishing scams and fraudulent e-mails

Phishing is a type of e-mail scam designed to steal your identity. Learn more about
how this scam works and what a phishing e-mail message may look like.
www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/identify.mspx

Avoid Getting 'Hooked' By Phishers

The most common form of phishing is emails pretending to be from a legitimate ...
A spam filter can help reduce the number of phishing emails you get. ...
www.fraud.org/tips/internet/phishing.htm

What is Phishing and how to prevent it?

Phishing, which is a play on fishing, is a technique by which fraudsters fish

(or phish, if you like) for gullible people using emails and web sites and
have them part with valuable information including personal details,
usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, account information etc.

A Phishing attack usually begins with a scam email that is sent in

thousands, if not millions. The phishing email appears to come from a
legitimate source like your trusted bank, Paypal account, eBay account or
at times the emails are simply general in nature asking for your help and
promising great rewards. This email typically has one or more links to a
fraudulent web site which looks like "the real thing" and where innocent
people and fleeced off their sensitive information.

How do you identify a phishing attack over email?

Phishing emails usually carry an attention grabbing and distressing subject

line - Your account has been suspended..., Unauthorized access to
your account..., Account violation... etc. The main purpose of phishing
emails is to act like baits so that you will be prompted to click on one of the
links in this email and be taken to a spoofed web site. This fraudulent web
site looks just like the legitimate web site - same logo, colors and layout.
However, if you bother to check the URL carefully you would realize that
you were this close to getting conned. By the way, hiding the URL or
masking it so that it appears like the original is another favorite trick of
phishers.

Most phishing emails are meant to "shock" you, if you know what I mean.
Take the example of Paypal phishing emails. The scam emails arrive at
your inbox with distressing email subjects - "Your Paypal account has been
hacked", "Your Paypal account has been blocked" etc. If you hold a Paypal
account you already know the kind of sensitive information it contains not to
mention any "real money" stored in your account. So if the con artists get
hold of your Paypal login details, you will end up not only losing the monies
but also your bank account information. Read Paypal phishing scam
attacks with real world examples of the choicest emails that I have
received.

Another well known phishing email was one promising you about million
dollars if you help the sender transfer funds to your bank account. The total
funds amount to millions of dollars (in most cases its 5 million USD - don't
ask me why) and you would be given 20-25% share if the transfer took
place successfully. This phishing email supposedly originates from one of
the African countries and is sent by a wife/daughter/son of a slain military
leader (killed in a coup - what else?). You can read The famous Nigerian
email scam - get a million dollars from a stranger if you want to know more.

What do the phishing scam artists want?

OK that's a no brainier! As I mentioned, the fraudsters are looking out to get

your personal information. This is not limited to just your name and contact
details... the issue becomes serious if you part with your bank details
(including personal identification numbers, passwords etc.), credit card
number or account details of Paypal, eBay, moneybookers.com etc. You
might end up with losses amounting to hundreds if not thousands of dollars
once you reveal precious information to these crooks. Giving login details
of your Paypal or eBay account can spell doom if you have monies or your
bank information stored in those accounts.

What can the Phishing scamsters do with your information?

This depends on the amount of information you share with the frauds.
Providing your Paypal login details would immediately give free access to
your account. Not only can the stored money be quickly transferred to
another Paypal account or used for purchase on eBay or other online
stores, additional funds can be stolen, if you've tied up your bank account
with your Paypal account.

Bank account details can be used in various nefarious ways. For example,
your credit card can be misused for online purchases or funds can be wire
transferred in a few hours to bank accounts located in the other part of the
world.

How do you protect yourself from phishing attacks?

A quick and easy way that offers a decent level of protection against scam
attacks is the Netcraft's free antiphishing toolbar. Netcraft is an Internet
services company devoted to tracking online technology. This toolbar is
available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox and runs on a community
effort that protects you from phishing attacks.
The Yahoo! toolbar also offer antiphishing features that are specially
beneficial for Paypal and eBay.com account holders.

However, I would like to take a philosophical approach when answering the

question of how to protect against phishing.
Each of us knows our failing and faults. The aim of the phisher is to attack
that tender spot. Phishing attacks target either your greed by luring you
with promises of huge fortunes or frighten/shock you with upsetting email
subjects and contents.
If you know you are gullible do not be worried by emails you receive. I
would advise a few relaxing breaths and then taking a fresh look at that
email and (important) don't click on any link in the email. For instance,
assuming you hold a Paypal account and get an email (seemingly) from
Paypal informing you that your account has been blocked, it is best to go
directly to the Paypal web site than clicking rashly on the link in the email.

For all the greedy folks looking out for that pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow, my advice is that it's not going to come from a stranger - esp. one
on the Internet. And neither will you be the lucky winner of a million dollar
lottery if you haven't bought a ticket. People are not there to dole out
money.

Phishing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Not to be confused with fishing, pish, or Phish.

For more information about Wikipedia-related phishing attempts, see

Wikipedia:Phishing e-mails

An example of a phishing e-mail, disguised as an official e-mail from a (fictional)

bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing confidential
information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website. Note the misspelling of
the words received and discrepancy. Such mistakes are common in most phishing
emails. Also note that although the URL of the bank's webpage appears to be
legitimate, it actually links to the phisher's webpage.
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as
usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy
entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from
popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT
administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is
typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging,[1] and it often directs users to
enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the
legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to
fool users,[2] and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.[3]
Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include
legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of
the term "phishing" was made in 1996. The term is a variant of fishing,[4] probably
influenced by phreaking,[5] [6] and alludes to baits used to "catch" financial
information and passwords.

[edit] History and current status of phishing

A phishing technique was described in detail, in a paper and presentation delivered to the
International HP Users Group, Interex.[7] The first recorded mention of the term "phishing" is on
the alt.online-service.america-online Usenet newsgroup on January 2, 1996,[8] although the term
may have appeared earlier in the print edition of the hacker magazine 2600.[9]

[edit] Early phishing on AOL

Phishing on AOL was closely associated with the warez community that
exchanged pirated software and the hacking scene that perpetrated credit card fraud
and other online crimes. After AOL brought in measures in late 1995 to prevent
using fake, algorithmically generated credit card numbers to open accounts, AOL
crackers resorted to phishing for legitimate accounts[10] and exploiting AOL.

A phisher might pose as an AOL staff member and send an instant message to a
potential victim, asking him to reveal his password.[11] In order to lure the victim
into giving up sensitive information the message might include imperatives like
"verify your account" or "confirm billing information". Once the victim had
revealed the password, the attacker could access and use the victim's account for
fraudulent purposes or spamming. Both phishing and warezing on AOL generally
required custom-written programs, such as AOHell. Phishing became so prevalent
on AOL that they added a line on all instant messages stating: "no one working at
AOL will ask for your password or billing information", though even this didn't
prevent some people from giving away their passwords and personal information if
they read and believed the IM first. A user using both an AIM account and an AOL
account from an ISP simultaneously could phish AOL members with relative
impunity as internet AIM accounts could be used by non-AOL internet members
and could not be actioned (i.e.- reported to AOL TOS department for disciplinary
action.)

Eventually, AOL's policy enforcement with respect to phishing and warez became
stricter and forced pirated software off AOL servers. AOL simultaneously
developed a system to promptly deactivate accounts involved in phishing, often
before the victims could respond. The shutting down of the warez scene on AOL
caused most phishers to leave the service.[12]

[edit] Transition from AOL to financial institutions

The capture of AOL account information may have led phishers to misuse credit
card information, and to the realization that attacks against online payment systems
were feasible. The first known direct attempt against a payment system affected E-
gold in June 2001, which was followed up by a "post-9/11 id check" shortly after
the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.[13] Both were viewed at the
time as failures, but can now be seen as early experiments towards more fruitful
attacks against mainstream banks. By 2004, phishing was recognized as a fully
industrialized part of the economy of crime: specializations emerged on a global
scale that provided components for cash, which were assembled into finished
attacks.[14][15]

[edit] Phishing techniques

[edit] Recent phishing attempts

A chart showing the increase in phishing reports from October 2004 to June 2005.

Phishers are targeting the customers of banks and online payment services. E-
mails, supposedly from the Internal Revenue Service, have been used to glean
sensitive data from U.S. taxpayers.[16] While the first such examples were sent
indiscriminately in the expectation that some would be received by customers of a
given bank or service, recent research has shown that phishers may in principle be
able to determine which banks potential victims use, and target bogus e-mails
accordingly.[17] Targeted versions of phishing have been termed spear phishing.[18]
Several recent phishing attacks have been directed specifically at senior executives
and other high profile targets within businesses, and the term whaling has been
coined for these kinds of attacks.[19]

Social networking sites are now a prime target of phishing, since the personal
details in such sites can be used in identity theft;[20] in late 2006 a computer worm
took over pages on MySpace and altered links to direct surfers to websites
designed to steal login details.[21] Experiments show a success rate of over 70% for
phishing attacks on social networks.[22]

The RapidShare file sharing site has been targeted by phishing to obtain a premium
account, which removes speed caps on downloads, auto-removal of uploads, waits
on downloads, and cooldown times between downloads.[23]

Attackers who broke into TD Ameritrade's database (containing all 6.3 million
customers' social security numbers, account numbers and email addresses as well
as their names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and trading activity) also
wanted the account usernames and passwords, so they launched a follow-up spear
phishing attack.[24]

Almost half of phishing thefts in 2006 were committed by groups operating

through the Russian Business Network based in St. Petersburg.[25]

Some people are being victimized by a Facebook Scam, the link being hosted by
T35 Web Hosting and people are losing their accounts.[26]

There are anti-phishing websites which publish exact messages that have been
recently circulating the internet, such as FraudWatch International and
Millersmiles. Such sites often provide specific details about the particular
messages.[27][28]

[edit] Link manipulation

Most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception

designed to make a link in an e-mail (and the spoofed website it leads to)
appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Misspelled URLs or the
use of subdomains are common tricks used by phishers. In the following
example URL, http://www.yourbank.example.com/, it
appears as though the URL will take you to the example section of the
yourbank website; actually this URL points to the "yourbank" (i.e.
phishing) section of the example website. Another common trick is to
make the displayed text for a link (the text between the <A> tags)
suggest a reliable destination, when the link actually goes to the
phishers' site. The following example link,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine, appears to take
you to an article entitled "Genuine"; clicking on it will in fact take you to
the article entitled "Deception". In the lower left hand corner of most
browsers you can preview and verify where the link is going to take you.
[29]
Hovering your cursor over the link for a couple of seconds will do a
similar thing.

An old method of spoofing used links containing the '@' symbol,

originally intended as a way to include a username and password
(contrary to the standard).[30] For example, the link
http://[email protected]/ might
deceive a casual observer into believing that it will open a page on
www.google.com, whereas it actually directs the browser to a page
on members.tripod.com, using a username of
www.google.com: the page opens normally, regardless of the
username supplied. Such URLs were disabled in Internet Explorer,[31]
while Mozilla Firefox[32] and Opera present a warning message and give
the option of continuing to the site or cancelling.

A further problem with URLs has been found in the handling of

Internationalized domain names (IDN) in web browsers, that might
allow visually identical web addresses to lead to different, possibly
malicious, websites. Despite the publicity surrounding the flaw, known
as IDN spoofing[33] or homograph attack,[34] phishers have taken
advantage of a similar risk, using open URL redirectors on the websites
of trusted organizations to disguise malicious URLs with a trusted
domain.[35][36][37] Even digital certificates do not solve this problem
because it is quite possible for a phisher to purchase a valid certificate
and subsequently change content to spoof a genuine website.
[edit] Filter evasion

Phishers have used images instead of text to make it harder for anti-phishing filters
to detect text commonly used in phishing e-mails.[38]

[edit] Website forgery

Once a victim visits the phishing website the deception is not over. Some phishing
scams use JavaScript commands in order to alter the address bar.[39] This is done
either by placing a picture of a legitimate URL over the address bar, or by closing
the original address bar and opening a new one with the legitimate URL.[40]

An attacker can even use flaws in a trusted website's own scripts against the victim.
[41]
These types of attacks (known as cross-site scripting) are particularly
problematic, because they direct the user to sign in at their bank or service's own
web page, where everything from the web address to the security certificates
appears correct. In reality, the link to the website is crafted to carry out the attack,
making it very difficult to spot without specialist knowledge. Just such a flaw was
used in 2006 against PayPal.[42]

A Universal Man-in-the-middle (MITM) Phishing Kit, discovered in 2007,

provides a simple-to-use interface that allows a phisher to convincingly reproduce
websites and capture log-in details entered at the fake site.[43]

To avoid anti-phishing techniques that scan websites for phishing-related text,

phishers have begun to use Flash-based websites. These look much like the real
website, but hide the text in a multimedia object.[44]

[edit] Phone phishing

Not all phishing attacks require a fake website. Messages that claimed to be from a
bank told users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank
accounts.[45] Once the phone number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a
Voice over IP service) was dialed, prompts told users to enter their account
numbers and PIN. Vishing (voice phishing) sometimes uses fake caller-ID data to
give the appearance that calls come from a trusted organization.[46]
[edit] Other techniques

 Another attack used successfully is to forward the client to a bank's

legitimate website, then to place a popup window requesting credentials
on top of the website in a way that it appears the bank is requesting this
sensitive information.[47]
 One of the latest phishing techniques is tabnabbing. It takes advantage of
the multiple tabs that users use and silently redirects a user to the affected
site.
 Evil twins is a phishing technique that is hard to detect. A phisher creates a
fake wireless network that looks similar to a legitimate public network that
may be found in public places such as airports, hotels or coffee shops.
Whenever someone logs on to the bogus network, fraudsters try to capture
their passwords and/or credit card information.

[edit] Damage caused by phishing(DISADVANTAGES)

The damage caused by phishing ranges from denial of access to e-mail to

substantial financial loss. It is estimated that between May 2004 and May 2005,
approximately 1.2 million computer users in the United States suffered losses
caused by phishing, totaling approximately US$929 million. United States
businesses lose an estimated US$2 billion per year as their clients become victims.
[48]
In 2007, phishing attacks escalated. 3.6 million adults lost US$3.2 billion in the
12 months ending in August 2007.[49] Microsoft claims these estimates are grossly
exaggerated and puts the annual phishing loss in the US at US$60 million.[50] In the
United Kingdom losses from web banking fraud—mostly from phishing—almost
doubled to GB£23.2m in 2005, from GB£12.2m in 2004,[51] while 1 in 20 computer
users claimed to have lost out to phishing in 2005.[52]

The stance adopted by the UK banking body APACS is that "customers must also
take sensible precautions ... so that they are not vulnerable to the criminal."[53]
Similarly, when the first spate of phishing attacks hit the Irish Republic's banking
sector in September 2006, the Bank of Ireland initially refused to cover losses
suffered by its customers (and it still insists that its policy is not to do so[54]),
although losses to the tune of €11,300 were made good.[55]

[edit] Anti-phishing
There are several different techniques to combat phishing, including legislation and
technology created specifically to protect against phishing. Most new internet
browsers come with anti-phishing software.

[edit] Social responses

One strategy for combating phishing is to train people to recognize phishing

attempts, and to deal with them. Education can be effective, especially where
training provides direct feedback.[56] One newer phishing tactic, which uses
phishing e-mails targeted at a specific company, known as spear phishing, has
been harnessed to train individuals at various locations, including United States
Military Academy at West Point, NY. In a June 2004 experiment with spear
phishing, 80% of 500 West Point cadets who were sent a fake e-mail were tricked
into revealing personal information.[57]

People can take steps to avoid phishing attempts by slightly modifying their
browsing habits. When contacted about an account needing to be "verified" (or any
other topic used by phishers), it is a sensible precaution to contact the company
from which the e-mail apparently originates to check that the e-mail is legitimate.
Alternatively, the address that the individual knows is the company's genuine
website can be typed into the address bar of the browser, rather than trusting any
hyperlinks in the suspected phishing message.[58]

Nearly all legitimate e-mail messages from companies to their customers contain
an item of information that is not readily available to phishers. Some companies,
for example PayPal, always address their customers by their username in e-mails,
so if an e-mail addresses the recipient in a generic fashion ("Dear PayPal
customer") it is likely to be an attempt at phishing.[59] E-mails from banks and
credit card companies often include partial account numbers. However, recent
research[60] has shown that the public do not typically distinguish between the first
few digits and the last few digits of an account number—a significant problem
since the first few digits are often the same for all clients of a financial institution.
People can be trained to have their suspicion aroused if the message does not
contain any specific personal information. Phishing attempts in early 2006,
however, used personalized information, which makes it unsafe to assume that the
presence of personal information alone guarantees that a message is legitimate.[61]
Furthermore, another recent study concluded in part that the presence of personal
information does not significantly affect the success rate of phishing attacks,[62]
which suggests that most people do not pay attention to such details.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry and law enforcement association,
has suggested that conventional phishing techniques could become obsolete in the
future as people are increasingly aware of the social engineering techniques used
by phishers.[63] They predict that pharming and other uses of malware will become
more common tools for stealing information.

Everyone can help educate the public by encouraging safe practices, and by
avoiding dangerous ones. Unfortunately, even well-known players are known to
incite users to hazardous behaviour, e.g. by requesting their users to reveal their
passwords for third party services, such as email.[64]

[edit] Technical responses

Anti-phishing measures have been implemented as features embedded in browsers,

as extensions or toolbars for browsers, and as part of website login procedures. The
following are some of the main approaches to the problem.

[edit] Helping to identify legitimate websites

Most websites targeted for phishing are secure websites meaning that SSL with
strong PKI cryptography is used for server authentication, where the website's
URL is used as identifier. In theory it should be possible for the SSL authentication
to be used to confirm the site to the user, and this was SSL v2's design requirement
and the meta of secure browsing. But in practice, this is easy to trick.

The superficial flaw is that the browser's security user interface (UI) is insufficient
to deal with today's strong threats. There are three parts to secure authentication
using TLS and certificates: indicating that the connection is in authenticated mode,
indicating which site the user is connected to, and indicating which authority says
it is this site. All three are necessary for authentication, and need to be confirmed
by/to the user.

[edit] Secure Connection

The standard display for secure browsing from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s was
the padlock. In 2005, Mozilla fielded a yellow URL bar 2005 as a better indication
of the secure connection. This innovation was later reversed due to the EV
certificates, which replaced certain certificates providing a high level of
organization identity verification with a green display, and other certificates with
an extended blue favicon box to the left of the URL bar (in addition to the switch
from "http" to "https" in the url itself).

[edit] Which Site

The user is expected to confirm that the domain name in the browser's URL bar
was in fact where they intended to go. URLs can be too complex to be easily
parsed. Users often do not know or recognise the URL of the legitimate sites they
intend to connect to, so that the authentication becomes meaningless.[3] A condition
for meaningful server authentication is to have a server identifier that is
meaningful to the user; many ecommerce sites will change the domain names
within their overall set of websites, adding to the opportunity for confusion.
Simply displaying the domain name for the visited website[65] as some anti-
phishing toolbars do is not sufficient.

Some newer browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8, display the entire URL in grey,
with just the domain name itself in black, as a means of assisting users in
identifying fraudulent URLs.

An alternate approach is the petname extension for Firefox which lets users type in
their own labels for websites, so they can later recognize when they have returned
to the site. If the site is not recognised, then the software may either warn the user
or block the site outright. This represents user-centric identity management of
server identities.[66] Some suggest that a graphical image selected by the user is
better than a petname.[67]

With the advent of EV certificates, browsers now typically display the

organisation's name in green, which is much more visible and is hopefully more
consistent with the user's expectations. Unfortunately, browser vendors have
chosen to limit this prominent display only to EV certificates, leaving the user to
fend for himself with all other certificates.

[edit] Who is the Authority

The browser needs to state who the authority is that makes the claim of who the
user is connected to. At the simplest level, no authority is stated, and therefore the
browser is the authority, as far as the user is concerned. The browser vendors take
on this responsibility by controlling a root list of acceptable CAs. This is the
current standard practice.
The problem with this is that not all certification authorities (CAs) employ equally
good nor applicable checking, regardless of attempts by browser vendors to control
the quality. Nor do all CAs subscribe to the same model and concept that
certificates are only about authenticating ecommerce organisations. Certificate
Manufacturing is the name given to low-value certificates that are delivered on a
credit card and an email confirmation; both of these are easily perverted by
fraudsters.[citation needed] Hence, a high-value site may be easily spoofed by a valid
certificate provided by another CA. This could be because the CA is in another part
of the world, and is unfamiliar with high-value ecommerce sites, or it could be that
no care is taken at all. As the CA is only charged with protecting its own
customers, and not the customers of other CAs, this flaw is inherent in the model.

The solution to this is that the browser should show, and the user should be
familiar with, the name of the authority. This presents the CA as a brand, and
allows the user to learn the handful of CAs that she is likely to come into contact
within her country and her sector. The use of brand is also critical to providing the
CA with an incentive to improve their checking, as the user will learn the brand
and demand good checking for high-value sites.

This solution was first put into practice in early IE7 versions, when displaying EV
certificates.[68] In that display, the issuing CA is displayed. This was an isolated
case, however. There is resistance to CAs being branded on the chrome, resulting
in a fallback to the simplest level above: the browser is the user's authority.[citation
needed]

[edit] Fundamental flaws in the security model of secure browsing

Experiments to improve the security UI have resulted in benefits, but have also
exposed fundamental flaws in the security model. The underlying causes for the
failure of the SSL authentication to be employed properly in secure browsing are
many and intertwined.

[edit] Security before threat

Because secure browsing was put into place before any threat was evident, the
security display lost out in the "real estate wars" of the early browsers. The original
design of Netscape's browser included a prominent display of the name of the site
and the CA's name, but these were dropped in the first release. Users are now
highly experienced in not checking security information at all.
[edit] Click-through syndrome

However, warnings to poorly configured sites continued, and were not down-
graded. If a certificate had an error in it (mismatched domain name, expiry), then
the browser would commonly launch a popup to warn the user. As the reason was
generally a minor misconfiguration, the users learned to bypass the warnings, and
now, users are accustomed to treat all warnings with the same disdain, resulting in
Click-through syndrome. For example, Firefox 3 has a 4-click process for adding
an exception, but it has been shown to be ignored by an experienced user in a real
case of MITM.[citation needed] Even today, as the vast majority of warnings will be for
misconfigurations not real MITMs, it is hard to see how click-through syndrome
will ever be avoided.

[edit] Lack of interest

Another underlying factor is the lack of support for virtual hosting. The specific
causes are a lack of support for Server Name Indication in TLS webservers, and
the expense and inconvenience of acquiring certificates. The result is that the use
of authentication is too rare to be anything but a special case. This has caused a
general lack of knowledge and resources in authentication within TLS, which in
turn has meant that the attempts by browser vendors to upgrade their security UIs
have been slow and lacklustre.

[edit] Lateral communications

The security model for secure browser includes many participants: user, browser
vendor, developers, CA, auditor, webserver vendor, ecommerce site, regulators
(e.g., FDIC), and security standards committees. There is a lack of communication
between different groups that are committed to the security model. E.g., although
the understanding of authentication is strong at the protocol level of the IETF
committees, this message does not reach the UI groups. Webserver vendors do not
prioritise the Server Name Indication (TLS/SNI) fix, not seeing it as a security fix
but instead a new feature. In practice, all participants look to the others as the
source of the failures leading to phishing, hence the local fixes are not prioritised.

Matters improved slightly with the CAB Forum, as that group includes browser
vendors, auditors and CAs.[citation needed] But the group did not start out in an open
fashion, and the result suffered from commercial interests of the first players, as
well as a lack of parity between the participants.[citation needed] Even today, CAB forum
is not open, and does not include representation from small CAs, end-users,
ecommerce owners, etc.[citation needed]
[edit] Standards gridlock

Vendors commit to standards, which results in an outsourcing effect when it comes

to security. Although there have been many and good experiments in improving
the security UI, these have not been adopted because they are not standard, or clash
with the standards. Threat models can re-invent themselves in around a month;
Security standards take around 10 years to adjust.[citation needed]

[edit] Venerable Certificate Authority model

Control mechanisms employed by the browser vendors over the CAs have not been
substantially updated; the threat model has.[citation needed] The control and quality
process over CAs is insufficiently tuned to the protection of users and the
addressing of actual and current threats.[citation needed] Audit processes are in great need
of updating.[citation needed] The recent EV Guidelines documented the current model in
greater detail, and established a good benchmark, but did not push for any
substantial changes to be made.[citation needed]

[edit] Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites

Another popular approach to fighting phishing is to maintain a list of known

phishing sites and to check websites against the list. Microsoft's IE7 browser,
Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Safari 3.2, and Opera all contain this type of anti-phishing
measure.[69][70][71][72] Firefox 2 used Google anti-phishing software. Opera 9.1 uses
live blacklists from PhishTank and GeoTrust, as well as live whitelists from
GeoTrust. Some implementations of this approach send the visited URLs to a
central service to be checked, which has raised concerns about privacy.[73]
According to a report by Mozilla in late 2006, Firefox 2 was found to be more
effective than Internet Explorer 7 at detecting fraudulent sites in a study by an
independent software testing company.[74]

An approach introduced in mid-2006 involves switching to a special DNS service

that filters out known phishing domains: this will work with any browser,[75] and is
similar in principle to using a hosts file to block web adverts.

To mitigate the problem of phishing sites impersonating a victim site by

embedding its images (such as logos), several site owners have altered the images
to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be
moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can
detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead
send a warning image.[76][77] and its totally safe

[edit] Augmenting password logins

The Bank of America's website[78][79] is one of several that ask users to select a
personal image, and display this user-selected image with any forms that request a
password. Users of the bank's online services are instructed to enter a password
only when they see the image they selected. However, a recent study suggests few
users refrain from entering their password when images are absent.[80][81] In
addition, this feature (like other forms of two-factor authentication) is susceptible
to other attacks, such as those suffered by Scandinavian bank Nordea in late 2005,
[82]
and Citibank in 2006.[83]

A similar system, in which an automatically-generated "Identity Cue" consisting of

a colored word within a colored box is displayed to each website user, is in use at
other financial institutions.[84]

Security skins[85][86] are a related technique that involves overlaying a user-selected

image onto the login form as a visual cue that the form is legitimate. Unlike the
website-based image schemes, however, the image itself is shared only between
the user and the browser, and not between the user and the website. The scheme
also relies on a mutual authentication protocol, which makes it less vulnerable to
attacks that affect user-only authentication schemes.

Dynamic image-based authentication for anti-phishing

Still another technique relies on a dynamic grid of images that is different for each login attempt.
The user must identify the pictures that fit their pre-chosen categories (such as dogs, cars and
flowers). Only after they have correctly identified the pictures that fit their categories are they
allowed to enter their alphanumeric password to complete the login. Unlike the static images
used on the Bank of America website, a dynamic image-based authentication method creates a
one-time passcode for the login, requires active participation from the user, and is very difficult
for a phishing website to correctly replicate because it would need to display a different grid of
randomly generated images that includes the user's secret categories.

[edit] Eliminating phishing mail

Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their
addressees' inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural
language processing approaches to classify phishing e-mails.[87][88]

[edit] Monitoring and takedown

Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from
phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting
down phishing websites.[89] Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to
both volunteer and industry groups,[90] such as PhishTank.[91] Individuals can also
contribute by reporting phone phishing attempts to Phone Phishing,[92] Federal
Trade Commission.[93]

[edit] Legal responses

On January 26, 2004, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed the first lawsuit
against a suspected phisher. The defendant, a Californian teenager, allegedly
created a webpage designed to look like the America Online website, and used it to
steal credit card information.[94] Other countries have followed this lead by tracing
and arresting phishers. A phishing kingpin, Valdir Paulo de Almeida, was arrested
in Brazil for leading one of the largest phishing crime rings, which in two years
stole between US$18 million and US$37 million.[95] UK authorities jailed two men
in June 2005 for their role in a phishing scam,[96] in a case connected to the U.S.
Secret Service Operation Firewall, which targeted notorious "carder" websites.[97]
In 2006 eight people were arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of phishing
fraud by creating bogus Yahoo Japan Web sites, netting themselves ¥100 million
(US$870,000).[98] The arrests continued in 2006 with the FBI Operation
Cardkeeper detaining a gang of sixteen in the U.S. and Europe.[99]

In the United States, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of
2005 in Congress on March 1, 2005. This bill, if it had been enacted into law,
would have subjected criminals who created fake web sites and sent bogus e-mails
in order to defraud consumers to fines of up to US$250,000 and prison terms of up
to five years.[100] The UK strengthened its legal arsenal against phishing with the
Fraud Act 2006,[101] which introduces a general offence of fraud that can carry up
to a ten year prison sentence, and prohibits the development or possession of
phishing kits with intent to commit fraud.[102]

Companies have also joined the effort to crack down on phishing. On March 31,
2005, Microsoft filed 117 federal lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Washington. The lawsuits accuse "John Doe" defendants of
obtaining passwords and confidential information. March 2005 also saw a
partnership between Microsoft and the Australian government teaching law
enforcement officials how to combat various cyber crimes, including phishing.[103]
Microsoft announced a planned further 100 lawsuits outside the U.S. in March
2006,[104] followed by the commencement, as of November 2006, of 129 lawsuits
mixing criminal and civil actions.[105] AOL reinforced its efforts against
phishing[106] in early 2006 with three lawsuits[107] seeking a total of US$18 million
under the 2005 amendments to the Virginia Computer Crimes Act,[108][109] and
Earthlink has joined in by helping to identify six men subsequently charged with
phishing fraud in Connecticut.[110]

In January 2007, Jeffrey Brett Goodin of California became the first defendant
convicted by a jury under the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. He was
found guilty of sending thousands of e-mails to America Online users, while
posing as AOL's billing department, which prompted customers to submit personal
and credit card information. Facing a possible 101 years in prison for the CAN-
SPAM violation and ten other counts including wire fraud, the unauthorized use of
credit cards, and the misuse of AOL's trademark, he was sentenced to serve 70
months. Goodin had been in custody since failing to appear for an earlier court
hearing and began serving his prison term immediately.[111][112][113][114]