full-disclosure - Are consumers being misled by "phishing"?

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Message-ID: <44A375EC.6080900@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jun 29 07:41:03 2006
From: schalulleke at gmail.com (Schanulleke)
Subject: Are consumers being misled by "phishing"?

n3td3v wrote:
> I believe the industry coined up "phishing" to make more money out of
> social engineering. Its obvious now that both are over lapping. Only
> the other day Gadi Evron was trying to coin up a phrase for "voice
> phishing". Why can't we cut to the chase and drop the (ph)rases and
> call it straight forward SOCIAL ENGINEERING.
n3td3v, Phishing, in my opinion, is a form of social engineering.

What I would like to refer to as phishing has as main characteristic 
that is is usually not targeted or targeted at a group (e.g. a bunch of 
yahoo users). Like spam (another form of social engineering?) phishing 
relies on volume to work. It relies on the fact that there is a sucker 
born every minute and it you ask enough people you will encounter the 
sucker. The social engineering that has a higher risk profile for me 
(and the job I have to do) is more targeted and less opportunistic in 
nature. It is a targeted attack against layer 8 of the OSI model, the human.

Phishing also has the nasty property that it exposes an organization to 
a risk that is outside the scope of the organization (the customers). 
The only thing that really helps is to educate the user. Social 
engineering against employees (like against the Yahoo helpdesk) can also 
be solved by training elements under your own control (one hopes).

Anyway my 2 cents for what they are worth.

Schanulleke