Identifying Methods of Web Attacks towards Minimizing their Effects on Websites

Abstract

This study set out to identify methods that phishers employ to attack unsuspecting internet users. The aim was for the purpose of minimizing their effects on websites as well as users. Eleven statements, namely, Emails, Web based, Malware based, Internet Relay Chats (IRC’s) Man in the middle (MITM) Domain Name Server (DNS) based, Impersonate, Forward Attack, Pop-up attack, Voice Phishing and Mobile Phishing, depicting methods used by phishers to carry out their attacks against unsuspecting victims who are the internet users were presented to respondents to indicate their level of agreement. The result showed that only two, (MITM and Web based) out of the eleven were not significant while the remaining nine were significant. That means only the two strategies of attacks are not really dangerous as such can be ignored. This also indicates a high level of danger posed by phishers. Suggestion for further studies was made.