The Web sites look real and the information sought seems justified. But it's really the latest form of e-mail scam, called "brand spoofing," "carding" or "Phishing."

The official-looking messages tell recipients that, because of technical problems, billing information and social security numbers for their accounts must be resubmitted. Scam artists recreate pages using information from legitimate Web sites in hopes of fooling consumers into providing their personal data. "Phishing is a two time scam," FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said. "Phishers first steal a company's identity and then use it to victimize consumers by stealing their credit identities."

Cracking down

On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission filed their first action against a suspected phisher, a 17-year-old California boy who allegedly used a page made to look like America Online to scam people out of their credit card numbers. It's all part of the growing trend of identity theft, the FTC said. Reports of stealing a person's financial information surged 88 percent to 162,000 last year, from about 86,000 in 2001, according to the agency. The FTC and Internet security firms say companies hit by the phishing scams in the last few months include Best Buy, UPS, Bank of America, PayPal and First Union Bank.

News source: CNN

Although the market is flat overall, there are several areas where change is happening, according to Ovum. These include:

  • Web services have the potential to revolutionize the enterprise software business by moving these applications to a services-based architecture
  • There will be continued consolidation among software vendors
  • Growth areas include business intelligence (BI), security, portals, and content management
  • New U.S. laws such as Basel II and Sarbanes-Oxley are fuelling interest in records management systems
  • Open source software continues to make ground.
  • Wireless technologies to support mobile workers and devices are beginning to attract serious interest.


    • There are 11 additional comments
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    (1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by kemical on 22 Jul 2003 - 19:51
    this has been going on since aol came out
    Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by linsook on 22 Jul 2003 - 19:53
    was jsut about to say the same thing
    Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by one321 on 22 Jul 2003 - 20:02
    At least they are cracking down on the morons that are doing it.

    It is frightening how many people out there would hand over personal information without question.
    (3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by xStainDx on 22 Jul 2003 - 20:11
    lol Phishing... ahhh the days of FATE-X on AOL
    Quote this comment #3.1 Posted by kemical on 22 Jul 2003 - 20:33
    haha, phishing for aol accounts was golden
    Quote this comment #3.2 Posted by radixvir on 22 Jul 2003 - 21:42
    ya i used to know a kid you did it all the time. it was really easy until they put that 'aol will never ask you for your password' right at the bottom of the im window. hehe good ol times
    Quote this comment #3.3 Posted by episode on 23 Jul 2003 - 01:55
    Still pretty easy even after they did that. Most AOL users are morons.

    (Note: I did not say all, so don't get your panties in a bunch. Obviously this does not include many - if any - neowin users)

    And shout outs to any of you who may have ever visited the private chats "phish" "phishy" "card" "zero" etc before the CAT team would come every few months and shut them down.

    Damn I was lame when I was an AOL kiddie.
    Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by OptiPlex on 23 Jul 2003 - 01:22
    YES! Morons go down!
    (1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by hao2lian on 23 Jul 2003 - 02:28
    There needs to be a way to encode HTML, CSS, etc. code so that it is harder to replicate an exact copy. There also needs a way to encode images so that saving it to your hard drive would be useless because you need a password.
    Quote this comment #5.1 Posted by mimeryme on 24 Jul 2003 - 06:28
    Actually there are solutions for that. Just hit google up for "encrypt HTML."
    Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by raid517 on 23 Jul 2003 - 04:55
    Lol the more people who pish on AOL the better if you ask me.

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