Korea: Portal Sites Attacked By Phishers

Majority of the favored gateway sites are being besieged by Phishers to perpetrate identity thefts, according to the Korean Nation Police Agency's Cyber Terror Response Center.

One of the accused called Yoo was lately arrested by the center for thieving login information of numerous individuals. His accomplice, Choi, is currently decamping and a wanted notice has been issued by the center claiming for his apprehension.

"Both Yoo and Choi formed various fake websites resembling the nation's major gateway sites and forwarded phishing e-mails to secure the login information of clients. Nearly 360,000 persons gave their login details, which Yoo and Choi exploited to transmit junk e-mails. They also traded the information via the net," alleged an anti-cyber terror center representative.

He held that this phishing scam is the initial one to be discovered linked to Korea's leading gateway sites, visited by more than 25 million persons every month.

"What mainly shocked us was that Yoo is an official of a regional cyber protection firm and Choi is also employed there. This establishes the fact that phishers can be everywhere," he appended.

The name phishing stands for a fraud that includes scams, such as conveying bogus emails, creating fake Internet sites so as to extort confidential data from the end user.

They were transferring netmails to persons feigning to be from gateway sites urging the receivers to logon to fake sites that resembles the actual portal sites. Usually, such messages solicit the receivers to update their data or intimidate them to shut their accounts at the gateway sites, thus duping receivers to divulge their private details to the cyber swindlers.

Phishing has proved to be the largest trouble in cyberspace. Though Korea has been reasonably secure, since the country has declared a few scams only. But the things are waiting for change. For example, a counterfeit Internet site in Korean lingo that asserted to be the authorized site of Kookmin Bank, the largest bank in Korea, was detected a year ago.

Specialists advocate cybernauts to apply effective anti-phishing and anti-spam package with regular modifications to safeguard them from these increasing phishing menaces.

Related article: Korea is the World’s Leading malware Creator

» SPAMfighter News - 9/30/2006