53 indicted in massive phishing plot

The FBI broke up a massive phishing scam last week, indicting 53 people in the United States in connection with a plot that victimized thousands of customers at two major U.S. banks. Another 47 people were indicted in Egypt.

The FBI called it "Operation Phish Phry" and said it was the largest cybercrime investigation ever to take place. Despite its huge numbers and massive reach, it is only the tip of the iceberg of a cyberproblem that continues to grow. Authorities have no real way of stopping this kind of cybercrime that has been growing by leaps and bounds across the Internet.

"It certainly is important," Dave Jevans, chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), whose members include Walmart, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay and dozens of others, told ComputerWorld.com. "Getting 100 people indicted all at one time is definitely a real success for law enforcement. It sends a message to criminals that they are not immune and that they can be tracked down and jailed, even if they are not in the U.S."

Last June, the APWG identified nearly 50,000 unique phishing websites. "The problem continues to grow and get worse," said Jevans, who estimates that as many as four billion phishing emails are sent across the Internet daily. In the latest case, attackers transferred thousands of dollars from accounts they gained access to with legitimate user names and passwords.

There are many attempts underway to block this problem. The APWG, reports ComputerWorld.com, is working with organizations such as ICANN to see if it is possible to develop processes that allow domain registrars to quickly remove rogue domain names from the Internet. This problem is so big that it will take a concerted effort to fight off phishing and other kinds of cyberattacks that threaten Internet users everywhere.

For more on this massive phishing scam:
- check out this ComputerWorld.com article

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