Do-it-yourself phishing kit targets email, social networks
A do-it-yourself phishing kit, which makes it easy for inexperienced scammers to target users of popular social networking websites such as Orkut, MySpace and Facebook and webmail platforms like Yahoo and Hotmail, was found by researchers from FaceTime Communications this week.Chris Boyd, senior director of malware research, said Monday that he found a user calling himself Muhammad Yousaf on a MySpace group to publicize hothackerclub.com. After further investigation, Boyd found a number of generic phishing pages, as well as fake Hotmail and MySpace screenshots, ready to be sent to unsuspecting users.
Would-be phishers were presented with a number of e-card choices that they could send to recipients. Targeted end-users were redirected to another domain, where they were presented with crafted phishing pages.
During successful phishing attempts, stolen personal details were sent to a user-specific page at Hothackerclub.com, which detailed the date of the theft and the type of account compromised, according to Boyd.
Boyd said on Monday that both of Yousaf's websites were taken down by hosts, and his Google AdSense account was suspended.
The page is registered to Yousaf, at an address in Pakistan, Boyd reported.
The researcher warned end-users to check the domain of emailed links.
“Otherwise you might end up on a hackers' rapidly growing trophy list,” he said.
While do-it-yourself phishing kits have been available on the web since at least 2004, the targeting of users of social networking sites has skyrocketed in the past year, with a number of prominent attacks focusing on members of MySpace.
