Phishing scammers and hackers now invading mobile phones - Technology - GMA News Online - Latest Philippine News

Phishing scammers and hackers now invading mobile phones
07/19/2011 | 07:25 PM
As technologies in cell phones advance day after day, phishers are also seeking various means to exploit vulnerable cell phone users, according to Internet security firm Symantec.

“The two key areas in which we can see this trend are, firstly, the increase in phishing against wireless application protocol (WAP) pages, and secondly, the use of compromised domain names that have been registered for mobile devices," the company said in its latest bulletin update.

The company said many legitimate brands have designed their websites for cell phones or WAP pages. The difference between a WAP page and a regular Web page is that the WAP page uses reduced file sizes and minimal graphics. This is done for cell phone compatibility and also to achieve higher browsing speeds while the user is on the move.

Symantec said it has recorded phishing sites spoofing such Web pages and has monitored the trend. In June, social networking and information services brands were observed in these phishing sites.

In one example, a phishing page hosted on a free Web hosting site featured of nothing more than a plain text form asking for users’ credentials —a typical design created for cell phones. When a victim enters the required information, the phishing page redirects to the WAP page of the legitimate brand.

The domain names used for websites accessed by mobiles devices commonly have a “.mobi" top level domain (TLD). These domain names are compromised and utilized by phishers to host several phishing sites.

Over the past six months, about 65 percent of these phishing sites spoofed brands from the banking sector, whereas 19 percent were from the e-commerce sector and the remaining were from the ISP, social networking, and information services sectors.

The primary motive of phishers in these attacks continues to be identity theft. Targeting cell phone users is just part of a new strategy for achieving the same result, Symantec said. — Newsbytes.ph