Phishing, Vishing and Fuzzing
January 26th 2007 03:17
In other words, these emails come from crooks.
Why ‘phishing’? My guess is that it relates to fishing – to see if someone will take the bait, along with the ph of phoney…for phoney emails. But I’m only guessing.
Another newish word on the scene is Fuzzing. Put simply, fuzzing is the use of artificial intelligences to test software applications for bugs so that the applications can eventually be exploited. It’s rather more complex than most of want to know, but if you’re keen, there’s an excellent but anonymous explanation here. This fellow, before he’s gone a paragraph into his talk is introducing words like spike, scapy, smudge and protos, all words connected with fuzzing, because they’re various kinds of tools. Check this out. It may be well worth familiarising yourself with.
And a third new word is Vishing. I’m vishing there weren’t so many new words in the computer scene, because they all seem to smack of something nasty. (I haven’t even got to the new use of Zombies yet – maybe tomorrow.)
Vishing is another form of identity theft. In this case, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and inexpensive and anonymous tool is used to dial phone numbers sequentially. An automated recording is played when the phone is answered, and unsuspecting consumers are directed to call an ‘anti-fraud free call number.’ That’s the dangerous part, and taking that step is likely to lead to your information being taken from you illegally. If you answer the recording on the free call number you’ll be giving away your personal and credit card information.
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