[Year 12 IPM] Pharming and DNS poisoning - new security threats

[Mark Kelly]

Pharming Out-Scams Phishing

http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,66853,00.html

First came phishing scams, in which con artists hooked unwary internet 
users one by one into compromising their personal data. Now the latest 
cyberswindle, pharming, threatens to reel in entire schools of victims.
...
The most alarming pharming threat is DNS poisoning, which can cause a 
large group of users to be herded to bogus sites. DNS -- the domain name 
system -- translates web and e-mail addresses into numerical strings, 
acting as a sort of telephone directory for the internet. If a DNS 
directory is "poisoned" -- altered to contain false information 
regarding which web address is associated with what numeric string -- 
users can be silently shuttled to a bogus website even if they type in 
the correct URL.

-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria Australia
Phone +613 95780844  Fax +613 95789253
webmaster:   http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
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