PHISHING

Phishing is the activity of fraudulently presenting oneself online as a legitimate enterprise in order to trick consumers into giving up personal financial information that will be used for identity theft or other criminal activity. Phishing is most commonly perpetrated through the mass distribution of e-mail messages directing users to a web site, but other venues are utilized as well... Pharming is the exploitation of a vulnerability in Domain Name Service (DNS) server software that allows a hacker to redirect that website's traffic to another web site. DNS servers are the machines responsible for resolving Internet names into their real addresses, and are used anytime a user types the name of a website into his or her web browser and attempts to view a web page... DNS protection mechanisms help ensure that a specific DNS server cannot be hacked and thereby become a facilitator of pharming attacks. While organizations should protect their DNS servers from tampering, the reality is..