Tuesday, January 9, 2007

RSA Discovers New Universal Man-in-the-Middle Phishing Kit

RSA uncovered a new Universal Man-in-the-Middle Phishing Kit, is designed to facilitate new and sophisticated attacks against global organizations in which the victims communicate with a legitimate web site via a fraudulent URL set by the fraudster.



The company said its 24x7 Anti-Fraud Command Center discovered that the kit that was being offered as a free trial on one of the online fraudster forums that the AFCC monitors regularly.



Using the Universal Man-in-the-Middle Phishing Kit, the fraudster creates a fraudulent URL via a simple and user-friendly online interface. This URL communicates with the legitimate website of the targeted organization in real- time - whether it is the online banking site of a financial institution, the order tunnel of an ecommerce company, or any other such business transacting with its users online. The victim receives a "standard" phishing email, and when clicking on the link s/he is directed to the fraudulent URL. The victim then interacts with genuine content from the legitimate website - which has been "imported" by the attack into the phishing URL - thus allowing the fraudster seamless, invisible and immediate access to the victim's personal information.



RSA said it can handle this attack in a similar fashion to the way it deals with "standard" phishing attacks - relying on a broad monitoring and detection network, its broad blocking network, as well as its expertise in site shutdown.

http://www.rsa.com