How Can We Stop Phishing and Pharming Scams?
By Paul L. Kerstein According to Gartner, between May 2004 and May 2005, roughly 1.2 million U.S. computer users suffered phishing losses valued at $929 million. The Computing Technology Industry Association has reported that pharming occurrences are up for the third straight year. Both types of scams lead unsuspecting customers to give up valuable personal and financial information. Phishing e-mails entice users to a fake website where they enter personal data. Pharming pop-up boxes appear at reputable websites and hijack the user, who enters financial data at an illegitimate URL. U.S. companies lose more than $2 billion annually as their clients fall victim, and they’ve finally started implementing a number of countermeasures. One countermeasure is software. In addition to spyware and adware, developers have introduced applications that can collect and store personal data while keeping it safely encrypted on the user’s hard drive. When a user enters personal information in reply to a
