Look familiar?
This is the familiar Google login page. The main display is correct. The google favicon is in the tab. The URL has gmail in it. Oh, but it isn’t Gmail! In a recent blog posting, researchers at Fortinet remind us of this unfortunate fact:
The easiest way to steal credentials is to ask for them!
In this criminal enterprise, the service provides all the tools a bad guy needs. The bad guys offer an easy to use interface to create the fake gmail page. The bad guys provide the backend that harvests the credentials from the page. Finally, the bad guys have created a market for the stolen credentials. All the new phisher needs to do is create and send the email that induces email recipients to click the link to the fake login site.
The secret to the success of this scam is not technology, but psychology. Users do not interact with the internet like detectives. An email is received. It looks normal and has a normal call to action. You click the link and go to a website that looks like what you expect. You enter your username and password like you always do. You lose.
How can you tell good email from email that pretends to be good? The Iconix tools help you tell the real from the fake.