Phishing

Phishing is the most visible and common security threat faced by large e-business organizations and financial institutions. Phishing involves the sending of fake emails to a user purporting to be from a legitimate organization, soliciting sensitive information.

Phishing attacks in the United States soared in 2007 as $3.2 billion was lost to these attacks, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. The survey found that 3.6 million adults lost money in phishing attacks in the 12 months ending in August 2007, as compared with the 2.3 million who did so the year before. As at January 2008, Millers Miles, one of the major recorders of phishing scams had listed phishing attacks against 657 companies; http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/scams.php

As Phishing relies on "social engineering", phishers continually adapt their approaches to snare unsuspecting users.

There are several reasons for phishing's success and growth:

1:: Phishing sites can be set-up in a matter of minutes by copying a real web page and sending out mass emails to a pre-purchased email list

2:: Phishing sites often take days/weeks to be closed down by a company (and relevant ISP)

3:: Prior to the launch of SentryBay's solution, there has been no effective solution that can protect web-based applications from phishing