Abstract: Protecting computer users from online frauds, such as phishing and pharming. A client computer may include a page signature extractor and a policy enforcer. The page signature extractor may encode a web page to generate its signature, which may be provided to a remote server computer for comparison with signatures of phishing pages. The client computer and the server computer may communicate using the DNS protocol. The policy enforcer may perform one or more predetermined actions when a match is found. Examples of such actions include replacing the web page with a blocking page, displaying a warning message, or both. The policy enforcer may be configured to determine if the web page is part of a phishing or pharming attack by comparing the URL of the web page to URLs of legitimate web pages.

Abstract: Provided is an Internet information security technique, and more particularly, a method for alerting a user that a connected web site is a phishing site by comparing connected web site information with normal site information. To this end, the method includes the steps of: (a) extracting information on a presently connected site; (b) if information on a normal site having the same domain as the connected site exists in a database, comparing the connected site information with the normal site information; and (c) if the connected site information does not match the normal site information, alerting a user that the connected site is a phishing site. Therefore, the user may safely use the Internet by confirming whether the connected web site is a phishing site.

Abstract: Detection for pharming attacks and specifically for changes in name-to-IP resolutions on a computer system using rules is described. The DNS settings and the Hosts file on a computer system are monitored and their modification information is saved as a part of the historical data over time. When an IP address is determined for a host name, various rules are applied to the IP address in connection with the saved historical data, such that each rule produces a score based on various criteria. Different rules may have different weights assigned to their scores. The scores of all the rules are summed up to produce a final score. If the final score is above a predefined value, then there is a suspicious change in the IP address, and an alert is sent. Otherwise, the host name and the IP address are saved as a part of the historical data.

Abstract: A secure authentication process detects and prevents phishing and pharming attacks for specific web sites. The process is based on a dedicated secure hardware store for user sign-in credentials, a database of information about specific web sites, and a private secure browser. All user web activity is monitored by an agent program. The agent program checks to make sure that user attempts to send any sign-in credentials stored in secure hardware store of user sign-in credentials, to any web site accessed by the user, is allowed only if the IP address of the web site accessed by the user matches at least one of the IP addresses stored web site database associated with the sign-in credential the user is attempting to send. The process also detects mismatches between a URL and the actual IP address of the web site associated with the URL.