George Mason University and SonicWALL The Phishing Ecosystem Analyzing the Dynamics for Maximum Defense Tuesday, April 11th 2006 – 2:45pm

2 Agenda  Overview of the Phishing Ecosystem  Questions for the panel  Scope of the problem  What did GMU do  Results  Phishing education  Other issues  Ask questions as we go  Wrap up & lessons learned

Let’s Go Phishing

4 The Phishing Checklist 1. Get an list 2. Develop the attack 3. Locate sites to send phishing from 4. Locate sites to host the phishing site 5. Launch the attack 6. Collect the information 7. Transform into cash

5 A bad day phishin’, beats a good day workin’  2,000,000 s are sent  5% get to the end user – 100,000 (APWG)  5% click on the phishing link – 5,000 (APWG)  2% enter data into the phishing site –100 (Gartner)  $1,200 from each person who enters data (FTC)  Our potential reward: $120,000 In 2005 David Levi made over $360,000 from 160 people using an eBay Phishing scam

6 A little phishing gang  The David Levi phishing gang – UK  6 members  Operated for 12 months  At least $360,000 from 160 people  Segmentation of jobs  Techie  Creative designer  Money laundering – mule driver Caught – received sentences from 1 to 4 years each

7 Tools to the Trade The Malware Community list Sending Machines Hosting Sites & Web site Construct Launch Collect Account Info Credit Info Identity Info Logins & Passwords Phished information turned into Cash Phishing Kit The phishing ecosystem DHA Site Crawlers Spyware Harvested Information $ Templates Sitecopy & wget Botnets Trojans Worms Keyloggers Hacks & Attacks “Real” Domain Names The Phisher $

8 The money laundering “Mule”  “Make Money at Home”  Recruits receive funds in their accounts  Transfer funds from their account via Western Union wire transfers to a 2nd (phishers) account  Paid 10% of the sum of each money transfer  One or two transfers each week - $3,000 to $5,000 each  “Nations Welfare Foundation”  Looking for a “Financial Operations Manager”  Transfer money for young cancer patients in USSR  Real looking web site complete with pictures  Paid 7% - can make $500 to $2,000 per week

9 Botnets  Botnet: A collection of compromised computers that are run under a common control structure  Functions  senders  DHA, spam, phishing, virus  DOS attacks  Rented out for $300 to $700 per hour  Jeanson James Ancheta made $60,000 by selling access  Over 10,000 botnets become active each day (Symantec)

10 Hacks and Attacks  9,715 – Number of phishing sites operational in January 2006 (APWG)  34% – The percentage of phishing sites hosted in the United States for December 2005 (APWG)  31% - The percentage of phishing sites that are being hosted on “real” web servers (SonicWALL) Hacked bank server hosts phishing sites March 13, 2006 (IDG News Service) – Criminals appear to have hacked a Chinese bank’s server and are using it to host phishing sites to steal personal data from customers of eBay Inc. and a major U.S. bank.

11 Scaling a phishing gang  The Campina Grande - Brazil  65 members  Operated for at least 3 months  200 accounts in six banks  $4.7 million stolen from bank accounts Feb 2006 – 41 members caught, 24 more still on the run

12 Tools to the Trade The Malware Community list Sending Machines Hosting Sites & Web site Construct Launch Collect Account Info Credit Info Identity Info Logins & Passwords Phished information turned into Cash Phishing Kit The phishing ecosystem DHA Site Crawlers Spyware Harvested Information $ Templates Sitecopy & wget Botnets Trojans Worms Keyloggers Hacks & Attacks “Real” Domain Names The Phisher

13 Roles of the Education in Phishing  Victim  Receive and respond to phishing attack  Bad for victim / Bad for you  Labor  Mules  Coders  Phisher  Organized cooperative environment  Participant  Hosting phishing sites  Sending – Botnets

GMU Slides

15 and Academia: The Challenge  supports communications, academic projects and business administration, but also makes you vulnerable  Diverse user needs  Limited resources and need to reduce operating costs

16 At George Mason University  30,000 active accounts  400,000 inbound messages/day (82% junk)  Decentralized, ineffective protection for spam  No protection from phishing  Six AV appliances  Costly maintenance

17 Determine The Requirements  User Town Hall Meetings  Quarantine is required  Ability to opt-out  Systems Management  No new staff – minimize daily tasks  Solaris-based  Management reporting

18 Evaluation Requirements  Effective - we receive only the s we want to receive  Easy to manage – something that doesn’t require additional IT time (actually, less time than what we’re spending is better)  Easy for end users – little to no training required, also something they can self-manage

19 The Process…  Product analysis, review requirements  Vendor questionnaire  Review responses  Invitation to technology day  Each vendor given 50 minutes  Present same info in specified order  Must include pricing and references  Q&A  Vendors cannot see other vendor presentations

20 Evaluation  All vendors that satisfied all requirements invited  Solutions placed in production mail flow for 15 days

21 spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam

Wrap-up

23 Wrap-up  Overview of the Phishing Ecosystem  Phish School  Scope of the problem  What did GMU do  Results  Phishing education  Other issues

Thank you Andrew Klein

The Four Parts of the Solution

26 The process The Brand A company that sends to it’s customers or employees and therefore is a target for phishing scams The Web Site The web site where you are directed to by the You The person who receives The Mailman A company that receives and delivers it to its employees/customers

27 The brand  Cut-and-Paste links, minimize links  Use personal information where possible  Dear John J. Smith  Account ending in 1234  Your zip code is  Provide non- ways to verify  Use standard company domain names  Identify your partners  Set and follow standard communication practices  Internally and externally

28 The mailman  Preemptive  Protect your address  Phishing is more than spam – think Virus  Technology  Multi-faceted solution – No silver bullet  Sender authentication and reputation, content, contact point divergence, URL exploits, real-time phish lists, etc.  World-wide community collaboration  Change is part of the business  Psychology  Educate your customers/employees – their PhishingIQ  is still Good! Really it is!

29 The web site  Company and personal sites  Monitor your site  Know your content  Practice good passwords  Keep logs, report phishing to authorities  Hosting services  Monitor new customers  Take phishing seriously  Unless they are eBay, assume they are not eBay!  Domain name registration services  Be diligent about domain registrations  Actively work to shut down phishing sites

30 You  Know your senders  Is this someone I do business with?  Is this something I was told I’d receive?  Look for other ways to respond  Be aware  Look for clues – improve your PhishingIQ  Don’t be afraid to ask  Protect your system  Know how your system is updated  Check your records