TippingPoint touts anti-phishing features

TippingPoint has included new antiphishing features to its intrusion prevention system (IPS).

Available at no extra cost, the IPS uses a variety of mechanisms to detect and prevent phishing scams, including vulnerability, pattern-matching and behavior-based protection.

Phishing occurs when a perpetrator masquerades as a legitimate organization, to obtain personal or financial information from an individual for malicious purposes. Several phishing incidents have been reported in Asia, most of which involve online banking Web sites.

Since phishing scams seem to originate from a trustworthy source, they can be difficult to prevent and costly to those who fall prey to them.

According to a recent report from analyst firm Gartner, an estimated 2.42 million adults in the United States reported losing money from phishing attacks last year. Total financial losses related to such attacks amounted to nearly US$929 million last year.

FraudWatch International research also indicates that more than 15,000 phishing scams have been reported since 2003.

To launch a campaign, phishers penetrate a legitimate site or server by taking advantage of Web programming flaws and browser loopholes. TippingPoint claims its new antiphishing tools guard against such attempts, and also block phishing e-mail by analyzing e-mail headers and content for defining phishing characteristics.