Jewish World Review Nov. 14, 2003 / 19 Mar-Cheshvan 5764
By Mark Kellner
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
It's called "phishing," the cyber-spoofing that lets someone grab your most
personal financial information and, unless you catch on quickly, use it to
plunder your bank account, credit card and even your good name.
As noted last week, your columnist was almost a victim. So, too, was another
reader, who wrote: "I received a similar e-mail over my PayPal account and
had exactly the same reaction you did," writes this reader, "and the same
experience as yours: it was only as I went through the deceptive form that I
realized something was wrong and exited without submitting anything."
That's one way of dealing with such messages I'll examine some other
strategies in a moment. However, what happens when a person's trusting
nature is used against them? That happened to a woman whom I'll call
"Florence." Her story was chilling and almost tragic.
"I was a victim." she wrote. "I received an email that looked like [it was
sent by] my [Internet service] provider. This was complete with logo. i
gave the credit card and password as requested."
She also asked a question by return e-mail; when it bounced back, she became
nervous and contacted the ISP. The company's fraud department confirmed her
suspicions and she began the arduous task of canceling her credit card,
getting a new one, and rearranging the areas of her life on which that card
was based: automatic payments and online shopping and the like.
"I am a retired police officer, and I fell for it," my correspondent wrote.
She said that Norton Internet Security didn't pick up the e-mail as "spam,"
and she emphasized how official-looking the item was.
Despite the fact that in this case, spam-filtering software didn't catch the
e-mail and I suspect firms such as Symantec (makers of the Norton
product) and others are working on ways to bridge that gap it's still a
good idea, in my view, to have Internet security software on your computer
as a first line of defense.
What else can you do? Digital entrepreneur and former Microsoft executive
Phil Goldman wrote to suggest his firm's e-mail system, Mailblocks, which
remotely filters your e-mail using a "challenge/response" system. Readers
may recall comments here last May about the service.
The way it works is simple: if I send you an e-mail and I'm not on your
"approved" list of senders (presumably your boss, family, close friends,
etc.), I receive a reply from Mailblocks. It offers to deliver my e-mail to
you, but only if I go to a Web site and enter a unique code. The e-mail from
Mailblocks is the "challenge" and my entry of the code the "response." The
premise is simple: a human who wants to communicate with you will go to this
trouble; a spammer or spoofer or their automated mailing system won't.
If you don't get the phony e-mail, you can't get ripped off.
According to a study commissioned by the firm and carried out by the Tolley
Group, a Florida-based research concern, "Depending on the solution,
[e-mail] filtering products failed to block from 25 percent to 80 percent of
spam, while Mailblocks' challenge/response blocked 100% of spam."
For $9.95 per year, you get access to the service and a 12 MB mailbox that
can be used to collect and process e-mail from a variety of accounts,
including AOL, Hotmail and MSN. If you're a heavy e-mail user, the $24.95
yearly price of a 50 MB mail box might make more sense. Details on both
products are at http://www.mailblocks.com and I can recommend the service
highly: it works precisely as advertised.
The only potential "downside" that some might see is this business of
issuing "challenges" to people you should be able to do business with
easily. The Mailblocks lets you maintain (and add to) an address book of
"friendly" senders; my editors and my dad are already on it. You can also
use a "Tracker," or special e-mail address, to get around the
challenge/response system for such e-mails as purchase confirmations or
mail-lists to which you subscribe. These are, to me, acceptable ways of
managing e-mail and avoiding spamming and "phishing." Just ask my
correspondent, the retired police officer.
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JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
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