Pharming, and the threat of identity theft
PHISH STORY
The pharmers and phishers are after your precious financial infor-mation. We’ll show you how to protect your interests.
Phishing is the art of tricking unsuspecting Internet users into giving up personal and financial information. This nefarious game has brought big rewards to a new generation of cyber con men. But phishing is only one of several tools in a bigger bag of tricks. This article examines some popular techniques for identity theft and shows what you can do to stay ahead of the threat. Phishing and Pharming Phishing uses tricks like spoofed email to tempt unsuspecting users into visiting rogue sites, where they are asked to enter personal data such as passwords or PIN numbers. Phishing attacks occur in two phases: in Phase One, the user is tricked into visiting the attacker’s web server. Attackers use various initial vectors to attract victims. In Phase Two, the user is prompted to enter the personal data. This part of the attack is often referred to as visual spoofing. The best known initial vectors are email spoofing and cross site scripting (XSS), where the attacker misuses the website of a trusted third party to initiate the attack. In all of these cases, the attack relies on the victim playing along and would fail without the victim’s compliance.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.
-
RingReaper Malware Poses Danger to Linux Systems
A new kind of malware exploits modern Linux kernels for I/O operations.