With close to 20,000+ Phishing sites discovered in February 2007 we believe that there should be better tools for finding these phishing sites. Most of the newer browsers have a Phishing warning system built into them. The warning system in your browser is a bit of a hit or miss when it comes to protecting you

As all phishing comes through email I asked why is there not a plug-in for Outlook to find phishing. I searched and could not find a simple solution that would tell me if an email is phishing. Instead of waiting for one to be built we put our development team at Manticore Media to the test to make one.

The challenge was to make a program that works on our clients’ many different machines and yet was still super simple to use. We found that the main problem with phishing emails is that the phishers generally hide their fake links in either an image or through a text link. All the emails come through as HTML so the email would have to be inspected for links.

We came to the conclusion that the easiest way to reveal if an email is phishing is to expose the link so it is visible to the end user. Example:

 Update your paypal (http://www.payp8l.com)

Is this method fool proof?  No but we feel that our tool will help eliminate a lot of the phishing that goes on. This will allow the end user to see exactly where a link is taking them before they click on it.

We are done the Alpha test and now need a few beta testers. The plug-in works for Outlook 2000, 2003 and 2007. If you would like to participate in the beta testing please leave a comment saying your Operating System and Outlook version and we will get you setup.

Please note the plug-in does not work with Outlook Express. Depending on the success of this tool we will consider doing an Outlook Express plug-in later.

This week PayPal lashed out saying hosts do not do enough to fight against Phishing.

“Web-hosting services need to do a better job of taking down phishing websites. Some of the most well known hosting services are some of the slowest,” said Sullivan. “If the sites were taken down more quickly, fewer people would be taken in.”

I know we respond to all phishing issues in an hour or less. I don’t think the problem is really with hosts but education of the public. This education should be done by hosts, ISP, merchant providers and banks.

What do you think hosts could do to fight phishing? Would you be willing to give-up hosting features on your site to ensure that phishing would not happen?

This weeks cartoon was created by Tim Whyatt.

If you have an idea for a future comic or would like to submit your own BlueFur cartoon let us know in a comment.

We have received our second Tshirt submission in our Tshirt contest. What do you think?

 

 Remember there is a cash prize for winning so submit your entry today.

Sorry I did not get to post my review of Massive 2007 yesterday. Things were a little busy for me.

So this year I was not as impressed with Massive as I have been in the past.  It felt like Massive picked up right where Comdex left off.  As a potential exhibitor for 2008, I’m not sure if the venue is worth the $1k+ it costs to attend the show.

The event itself was full. There were countless rows of exhibitors giving away lots and lots of pens. There was only a single booth that really engaged you as a user and drew you in and that was the Yahoo booth.  They had a section designated as a Think Tank round table. The only problem was, there was no structure nor experts to lead the round table discussions.

For these shows to be successful and be a break down of business networking and encourage techs to get to know each other, then it needs to add an element of excitment or some sort of enticing event that would appeal to techs.

Did you go? If so what did you think?

Just a reminder that the Massive Technology Show is today. I will be posting later on how the event went.

If you are looking for me I will be the one wearing the bluefur.com hat and shirt.