Rock Phish helps increasing Internet fraud

Phishing is a cyber crime that works through fraudulent email and websites that are created to “fish” such sensitive information as passwords and credit card details in order to steal money. There has been a huge increase of phishing attacks in San Francisco recently.

Rock Phish – a small shadowy cyber gang, consisting of few professional hackers who not just oversee phishing sites but provide tools on the internet that enables others phish as well – are responsible for this worsening situation.  

According to usatoday.com this cyber gang, that got its name because of its use of the word “rock” in the web addresses of phishing sites, is believed to be in Eastern Europe, based on the widespread availability of its phishing tools on websites hosted in that region. 

Although many highly ranked and responsible people are aware of this issue, nothing much can be done, for there is little legal resource against foreign phishing attacks. Yet, as far as cyber crime is becoming a rather reasonable concern all over the world, it is believed that soon the problem will be an international issue and it’ll be easier to neutralize even foreign cyber criminals.

The numbers of phishing attacks are rising incredibly fast and Rock Phish is surely one of the most successful cyber crime groups at the moment. Usatoday.com stated that Rock Phish attacks employ Web addresses containing the names of real businesses, such as Bank of America, that are interspersed with random numbers. 

Rock Phish group is shadowy and hard to detect because the addresses they use are authentic. Phishers register new addresses in rarely used domains that are not on the radar of law enforcement and anti-phishing groups. Such domains as Moldova (.md) and Sao Tome and Principle (.st) are common targets.

Sooner or later such phishing sites are detected, but it’s usually too late, for cyber criminals have already achieved their goal and at least some people are duped and their sensitive information has already been stolen.

The only way not to become a victim of such cyber criminal groups as Rock Phish is to be excessively careful about adding your personal information to any web site or replying to untrustworthy emails. Have in mind that hardly any bank or other financial institution would ask for such information via email. 

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