credit card phishing - piles of credit cards with a fish hook on computer keyboard

Name Origins

Phishing scams use spoofed emails and websites as lures to prompt people to voluntarily hand over sensitive information. It isn’t surprising, then, that the term “phishing” is commonly used to describe these ploys. There is also a good reason for the use of “ph” in place of the “f” in the spelling of the term. Some of the earliest hackers were known as phreaks. Phreaking refers to the exploration, experimenting and study of telecommunication systems. Phreaks and hackers have always been closely linked. The “ph” spelling was used to link phishing scams with these underground communities.

America Online Origins

Back when America Online (AOL) was the number-one provider of Internet access, millions of people logged on to the service each day. Its popularity made it a natural choice for those who had less than pure motives. From the beginning, hackers and those who traded pirated software used the service to communicate with one another. This community was referred to as the warez community. It was this community that eventually made the first moves to conduct phishing attacks.

The first way in which phishers conducted attacks was by stealing users' passwords and using algorithms to create randomized credit card numbers. While lucky hits were few and far between, they struck the jackpot often enough to cause a lot of damage. The random credit card numbers were used to open AOL accounts. Those accounts were then used to spam other users and for a wide range of other things. Special programs like AOHell were used to simplify the process. This practice was put to an end by AOL in 1995, when the company created security measures to prevent the successful use of randomly generated credit card numbers

The Evolution of Phishing

In many ways, phishing hasn’t changed a lot since its AOL heyday. In 2001, however, phishers turned their attention to online payment systems. Although the first attack, which was on E-Gold in June 2001, was not considered to be successful, it planted an important seed. In late 2003, phishers registered dozens of domains that looked like legitimate sites like eBay and PayPal if you weren't paying attention. They used email worm programs to send out spoofed emails to PayPal customers. Those customers were led to spoofed sites and asked to update their credit card details and other identifying information.

By the beginning of 2004, phishers were riding a huge wave of success that included attacks on banking sites and their customers. Popup windows were used to acquire sensitive information from victims. Since that time, many other sophisticated methods have been developed. They all boil down to the same basic concept, though, and it is safe to say that this concept has proved to be quite effective.

First Recorded Mention

According to Internet records, the first time that the term “phishing” was used and recorded was on January 2, 1996. The mention occurred in a Usenet newsgroup called AOHell. It is fitting that it was made there too; America Online is where the first rumblings of what would become a major criminal issue would take place.

Phishing Attacks Begin

With their random credit card number generating racket shut down, phishers created what would become a very common and enduring set of techniques. Through the AOL instant messenger and email systems, they would send messages to users while posing as AOL employees.

Those messages would request users to verify their accounts or to confirm their billing information. More often than not, people fell for the ruse; after all, nothing like it had ever been done before. The problem intensified when phishers set up AIM accounts through the Internet; such accounts could not be “punished” by the AOL TOS department. Eventually, AOL was forced to include warnings on its email and instant messenger clients to keep people from providing sensitive information through such methods.

Techniques

There are a number of different techniques used to obtain personal information from users. As technology becomes more advanced, the cybercriminals' techniques being used are also more advanced.

To prevent Internet phishing, users should have knowledge of how the bad guys do this and they should also be aware of anti-phishing techniques to protect themselves from becoming victims.

Spear Phishing

While traditional phishing uses a 'spray and pray' approach, meaning mass emails are sent to as many people as possible, spear phishing is a much more targeted attack in which the hacker knows which specific individual or organization they are after. They do research on the target in order to make the attack more personalized and increase the likelihood of the target falling into their trap.

Session Hijacking

In session hijacking, the phisher exploits the web session control mechanism to steal information from the user. In a simple session hacking procedure known as session sniffing, the phisher can use a sniffer to intercept relevant information so that he or she can access the Web server illegally.

Email/Spam

Using the most common phishing technique, the same email is sent to millions of users with a request to fill in personal details. These details will be used by the phishers for their illegal activities. Most of the messages have an urgent note which requires the user to enter credentials to update account information, change details, or verify accounts. Sometimes, they may be asked to fill out a form to access a new service through a link which is provided in the email.

Content Injection

Content injection is the technique where the phisher changes a part of the content on the page of a reliable website. This is done to mislead the user to go to a page outside the legitimate website where the user is then asked to enter personal information.

Web Based Delivery

Web based delivery is one of the most sophisticated phishing techniques. Also known as “man-in-the-middle,” the hacker is located in between the original website and the phishing system. The phisher traces details during a transaction between the legitimate website and the user. As the user continues to pass information, it is gathered by the phishers, without the user knowing about it.

Phishing through Search Engines

Some phishing scams involve search engines where the user is directed to product sites which may offer low cost products or services. When the user tries to buy the product by entering the credit card details, it’s collected by the phishing site. There are many fake bank websites offering credit cards or loans to users at a low rate but they are actually phishing sites.

Link Manipulation

Link manipulation is the technique in which the phisher sends a link to a malicious website. When the user clicks on the deceptive link, it opens up the phisher’s website instead of the website mentioned in the link. Hovering the mouse over the link to view the actual address stops users from falling for link manipulation.

Vishing (Voice Phishing)

In phone phishing, the phisher makes phone calls to the user and asks the user to dial a number. The purpose is to get personal information of the bank account through the phone. Phone phishing is mostly done with a fake caller ID.

Keyloggers

Keyloggers refer to the malware used to identify inputs from the keyboard. The information is sent to the hackers who will decipher passwords and other types of information. To prevent key loggers from accessing personal information, secure websites provide options to use mouse clicks to make entries through the virtual keyboard.

Smishing (SMS Phishing)

Phishing conducted via Short Message Service (SMS), a telephone-based text messaging service. A smishing text, for example, attempts to entice a victim into revealing personal information via a link that leads to a phishing website.

Trojan

A Trojan horse is a type of malware designed to mislead the user with an action that looks legitimate, but actually allows unauthorized access to the user account to collect credentials through the local machine. The acquired information is then transmitted to cybercriminals.

Malware

Phishing scams involving malware require it to be run on the user’s computer. The malware is usually attached to the email sent to the user by the phishers. Once you click on the link, the malware will start functioning. Sometimes, the malware may also be attached to downloadable files.

Malvertising

Malvertising is malicious advertising that contains active scripts designed to download malware or force unwanted content onto your computer. Exploits in Adobe PDF and Flash are the most common methods used in malvertisements.

Ransomware

Ransomware denies access to a device or files until a ransom has been paid. Ransomware for PC's is malware that gets installed on a user’s workstation using a social engineering attack where the user gets tricked in clicking on a link, opening an attachment, or clicking on malvertising.

Top-Clicked Phishing Emails

Curious about what users are actually clicking on? Every quarter we release which subjects users click on the most!

Our customers run millions of phishing tests per year and we get numbers on what top-clicked templates are. The infographic below shows the latest data, broken down into 3 categories. The first two sections rank email subjects related to social media and general emails. 'In The Wild' attacks are the most common email subjects we receive from our customers by employees clicking the Phish Alert Button on real phishing emails and sending the email to us for analysis..

KnowBe4 Q4 2017 Top-Clicked Social Phishing Email Subjects

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