Predictions

Predictions

by Mike Masnick




Optimistic Predictions On Stomping Out Phishing

from the good-luck-with-that... dept

Howard Schmidt, who advised the administration (briefly) on cybersecurity, and also worked for eBay and Microsoft doesn't think phishing scams are that big of a deal. In fact, he believes that within one year, a combination of technology and law enforcement will make phishing a scam of the past. Is he taking bets on that prediction? The main problem is that phishing still is largely a social engineering trick, more than a technology one. Unless you're going to convince everyone that filling out info requested via emails is a bad thing, there's still going to be phishing. Considering the fact that we still haven't be able to convince people (1) not to click on attachments (2) not to reply to spammers and (3) not to download free software without understanding what crap they're loading onto their machines, somehow it seems unlikely that phishing will simply be wiped out within one year.

1 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

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  • Dec 12th, 2004 @ 12:39pm

    Talk about clueless...

    by Paul

    Nice thought, but phishing will not disappear in one year. It will eventually be gotten rid of in private email networks, but will forever exist in the public email systems.

    But since the majority of people will be using the second-generation email networks (private ones that handle authentication and dependability), only the ones who deserve to be phished will be left on the public email systems.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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