Chapter 1 - Banking on phishing

Abstract

This chapter discusses the fact that frauds, identity thefts, phishing, and spams are quickly becoming the largest threats to e-commerce, as well as to the reputation and overall bottom line of financial institutions in the 21st century. Successful mitigation will depend on the way accurate initial identification and classification of phishing and spam types, individuals, groups, and organizations are communicated to law–enforcement agencies. Phishing, also simply known as brand spoofing, attempts to forge or falsify a legitimate organization's e-mail address or Website in an attempt to gather confidential and private information—such as credit card account numbers or account login information—from an e-mail recipient . Many laws on both state and federal levels address identity theft and fraud, but few directly address phishing. Proactive detection and tracking of victim-zero, or when the phishers perform their first target test, is the key to stop phishing attacks, regardless of their intended payload.