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A Simple Solution to Phishing?

by Tim Stevens on May 8, 2007 at 09:31 AM



Phishing -- the practice of sending phony e-mails that lure users into providing their login info for their personal banking accounts -- is a huge problem. American computer users are swindled out of approximately $1 billion a year from phishing, while businesses lose twice that.

Mikko Hypponen, executive offier for F-Secure, has come up with with a pretty elegant solution. He suggests that a new Internet domain (like .com or .org) be created specifically for banks. The new domain, .bank, would be used exclusively for companies that offer financial services. In practice, if you received an message asking to log into your account and the link ended in anything other a .bank, you would know the e-mail is fake (and should be deleted). It's a simple solution and could be effective -- assuming users actually look at the link.

From Slashdot

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Tags: ID Theft, IdTheft, Phishing

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