Online Scammers’ Playing with Reputation of Corporate

MarkMonitor in its yearly report, "brandjacking", attempts to measure the level of damage done to reputation of corporate by phishing attacks and indicates that online scammers' phishing activities only intensified in 2007 and businesses tried to defend their images online.

President and CEO, Irfan Salim, MarkMonitor, said that the report also reveals phishers' shift to new areas like VoIP for creating more common threats like domain kiting - use of short-lived fraudulent Websites and the associated pay-per-click deception has reduced, as reported by ITPRO on February 25, 2008.

The research firm further says that cyber squatting was observed in nearly 382,248 instances in fourth quarter of 2007. The company's experts noted the revival of cyber squatting after a phase of less prevalence as compared to brand attacks (attempted with use of phishing schemes during past several years) is possibly tied to numerous people pushing to make big money via deceptive online advertising.

This significant increase in cyber squatting is carried out by using trademarks and brand names to redirect traffic to unauthorized, offensive, or illegitimate Websites through various search engines.

VP and GM, Charlie Abrahams, MarkMonitor, said that as phishers continue with their activities, banks are simultaneously adopting measures to safeguard themselves, as reported by ITPRO on February 25, 2008.

Abrahams added that other industries however haven't taken any measures and allowing the phishers to exploit every area where it is possible for them to reap the maximum reward.

Frederick Felman, Chief Marketing Officer, MarkMonitor, added that with popular terms are reaching from six to seven figures in authorized domain auctions, people trying to earn ill-gotten money by diverting traffic to Internet advertising are left struggling because all the recognized dictionary phrases or words have already been used up, as reported by InfoWorld on February 25, 2008.

According to the report, another tactic that has emerged commonly among cyber squatters is addition of several well-known brands to the URL names. One such site that recently draw the attention of MarkMonitor is "GucciFendi.com" that adds two popular fashion brands' names to draw people's notice. Although neither Gucci nor Fendi authorized the site, their names could appear in search results for the companies.

Related article: Online Card Fraud Shows Greater Tendency Than Chip and Pin

» SPAMfighter News - 3/5/2008