Hello Kurt,
You might be interested in a recent writeup on the emergence of a new
phishing technique that has been experienced in the wild. If you are
able to create a fake phishing attack that is equivalent to it, then
it is pretty much guaranteed that your users will not pick up on it.
The following is a cut and paste from the other lists where it was
sent, but you should be able to work out enough from the details in
order to scare your users.
For those interested in the original FD/SF phishing email about a new
phishing technique being employed on a professional networking site
(late last week), the investigation and subsequent report have been
published. Readers of 'The Register' will note a write up already in
place with some feedback from the site involved. Although the claim
of 10 or so reports per month of similar scams being made are
probable, I doubt that many (if any) have taken as much detailed
involvement from the scammer before the phish is set.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/29/ecademy_419_scam/
You can find the report at the following address:
http://www.beskerming.com/marketing/reports/index.html
Or, for the direct link:
http://www.beskerming.com/marketing/reports/
Beskerming_Phishing_Report_Jan_07.pdf
A higher detailed version is available upon request, which includes
sufficient detail in the account screenshots for the profile text to
be legible.
An Executive Summary for those who don't want to read the report:
- Yes, it was a scam. The scammer started out with a stolen
identity, maintaining it all the way through the scam (even when
confronted)
- Ultimately it was a 419-style phish / scam that was traced back
to Nigeria
- The first recorded use of the particular stolen identity was
November 06, with a very similar scam (though a more traditional mass
spam email).
- The scammer invested at least 2-3 days of communication and trust-
building before beginning to seed the phish / scam
- The initial round of the phish bait was mild enough to almost be
missed.
- The Networking site was VERY prompt in addressing the situation
once notified (less than 5 minutes to remove the account when it
reappeared and they were notified again). Props to Ecademy in this
case.
- Sometimes you just need to be paranoid.
Any questions or queries, just ask them.
Carl
Sûnnet Beskerming Pty. Ltd.
Adelaide, Australia
http://www.beskerming.com
On 31/01/2007, at 12:42 AM, webmaster@absolutenetworks.biz wrote:
We all know our weak link but how do you identify just how weak
they are? I
think it's time to pen test my user community and have a couple
ideas to gather
statistics on just how nonaware they really are. Maybe a simple
phishing scam
and bogus email with a fake virus attachment that emails me when
it's opened so
I can track how many folks actually opened it. Has anyone ever
done this
before? I can't find any information about it on the web.. thoughts
and ideas
anybody?
Many thanks
Kurt
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