phishing Archives - Page 11 of 12 - Schneier on Security

Entries Tagged "phishing"

Page 11 of 12

Failure of Two-Factor Authentication

Here’s a report of phishers defeating two-factor authentication using a man-in-the-middle attack.

The site asks for your user name and password, as well as the token-generated key. If you visit the site and enter bogus information to test whether the site is legit—a tactic used by some security-savvy people—you might be fooled. That’s because this site acts as the “man in the middle”—it submits data provided by the user to the actual Citibusiness login site. If that data generates an error, so does the phishing site, thus making it look more real.

I predicted this last year.

Posted on July 12, 2006 at 7:31 AM • View Comments

Why Phishing Works

Interesting paper.

Abstract:

To build systems shielding users from fraudulent (or phishing) websites, designers need to know which attack strategies work and why. This paper provides the first empirical evidence about which malicious strategies are successful at deceiving general users. We first analyzed a large set of captured phishing attacks and developed a set of hypotheses about why these strategies might work. We then assessed these hypotheses with a usability study in which 22 participants were shown 20 web sites and asked to determine which ones were fraudulent. We found that 23% of the participants did not look at browser-based cues such as the address bar, status bar and the security indicators, leading to incorrect choices 40% of the time. We also found that some visual deception attacks can fool even the most sophisticated users. These results illustrate that standard security indicators are not effective for a substantial fraction of users, and suggest that alternative approaches are needed.

Here’s an article on the paper.

Posted on April 4, 2006 at 2:18 PM • View Comments

Petnames

Interesting paper:

Zooko’s Triangle argues that names cannot be global, secure, and memorable, all at the same time. Domain names are an example: they are global, and memorable, but as the rapid rise of phishing demonstrates, they are not secure.

Though no single name can have all three properties, the petname system does indeed embody all three properties. Informal experiments with petname-like systems suggest that petnames can be both intuitive and effective. Experimental implementations already exist for simple extensions to existing browsers that could alleviate (possibly dramatically) the problems with phishing. As phishers gain sophistication, it seems compelling to experiment with petname systems as part of the solution.

Posted on February 8, 2006 at 11:25 AM • View Comments

New Phishing Trick

Although I think I’ve seen the trick before:

Phishing schemes are all about deception, and recently some clever phishers have added a new layer of subterfuge called the secure phish. It uses the padlock icon indicating that your browser has established a secure connection to a Web site to lull you into a false sense of security. According to Internet security company SurfControl, phishers have begun to outfit their counterfeit sites with self-generated Secure Sockets Layer certificates. To distinguish an imposter from the genuine article, you should carefully scan the security certificate prompt for a reference to either “a self-issued certificate” or “an unknown certificate authority.”

Yeah, like anyone is going to do that.

Posted on December 1, 2005 at 7:43 AM • View Comments

Scandinavian Attack Against Two-Factor Authentication

I’ve repeatedly said that two-factor authentication won’t stop phishing, because the attackers will simply modify their techniques to get around it. Here’s an example where that has happened:

Scandinavian bank Nordea was forced to shut down part of its Web banking service for 12 hours last week following a phishing attack that specifically targeted its paper-based one-time password security system.

According to press reports, the scam targeted customers that access the Nordea Sweden Web banking site using a paper-based single-use password security system.

A blog posting by Finnish security firm F-Secure says recipients of the spam e-mail were directed to bogus Web sites but were also asked to enter their account details along with the next password on their list of one-time passwords issued to them by the bank on a “scratch sheet”.

From F-Secure’s blog:

The fake mails were explaining that Nordea is introducing new security measures, which can be accessed at www.nordea-se.com or www.nordea-bank.net (fake sites hosted in South Korea).

The fake sites looked fairly real. They were asking the user for his personal number, access code and the next available scratch code. Regardless of what you entered, the site would complain about the scratch code and asked you to try the next one. In reality the bad boys were trying to collect several scratch codes for their own use.

The Register also has a story.

Two-factor authentication won’t stop identity theft, because identity theft is not an authentication problem. It’s a transaction-security problem. I’ve written about that already. Solutions need to address the transactions directly, and my guess is that they’ll be a combination of things. Some transactions will become more cumbersome. It will definitely be more cumbersome to get a new credit card. Back-end systems will be put in place to identify fraudulent transaction patterns. Look at credit card security; that’s where you’re going to find ideas for solutions to this problem.

Unfortunately, until financial institutions are liable for all the losses associated with identity theft, and not just their direct losses, we’re not going to see a lot of these solutions. I’ve written about this before as well.

We got them for credit cards because Congress mandated that the banks were liable for all but the first $50 of fraudulent transactions.

EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a related story. The Bank of New Zealand suspended Internet banking because of phishing concerns. Now there’s a company that is taking the threat seriously.

Posted on October 25, 2005 at 12:49 PM • View Comments

Phishing Without Computers

Here’s a phishing scam using an SMS message and a telephone call.

Posted on October 17, 2005 at 7:54 AM • View Comments

Phishing

My third Wired column is on line. It’s about phishing.

Financial companies have until now avoided taking on phishers in a serious way, because it’s cheaper and simpler to pay the costs of fraud. That’s unacceptable, however, because consumers who fall prey to these scams pay a price that goes beyond financial losses, in inconvenience, stress and, in some cases, blots on their credit reports that are hard to eradicate. As a result, lawmakers need to do more than create new punishments for wrongdoers—they need to create tough new incentives that will effectively force financial companies to change the status quo and improve the way they protect their customers’ assets.

EDITED TO ADD: There’s a discussion on Slashdot.

Posted on October 6, 2005 at 8:10 AM • View Comments

Phishing and Identity Theft

I’ve already written about identity theft, and have said that the real problem is fraudulent transactions. This essay says much the same thing:

So, say your bank uses a username and password to login to your account. Conventional wisdom (?) says that you need to prevent the bad guys from stealing your username and password, right? WRONG! What you are trying to prevent is the bad guys STEALING YOUR MONEY. This distinction is very important. If you have an account with $0 dollars in it, which you never use, what does it matter if someone knows the access details? Your username and password are only valuable insofar as the bank allows anyone who knows them to take your money. And therein lies the REAL problem. The bank is too lazy (or incompetent) to do what Bruce Schneier describes as “authenticate the transaction, not the person”. While it is incredibly difficult to prevent the bad guys from stealing access credentials (especially with browsers like Internet Explorer around), it is actually much simpler to prevent your money disappearing off to some foreign country….

When something goes wrong, the bank will tell you that you “authorised” the transaction, where in fact the party who ultimately “authorised” it is the bank, based on the information they chose to take as evidence that this transaction is the genuine desire of a legitimate customer.

The essay provides some recommendations as well.