Phishing

PayPal is a service that allows the users to send money via email. It experienced a Phishing scam in the year 2000. The scam came to be known as the Paypal phishing scam. The attack was done by changing PayPal to the name PayPaI. The name was changed because the capital i ( I) almost resembles the small L ( l ) and the two were difficult to differentiate.

This attack was directed at the account holders of the PayPal service. It was done with the help of fake notification e-mails. Actually, PayPal sends a notification e-mail to all its account holders whenever they receive any payments. The fake notification e-mails were a form of spam that was sent out with a cleverly designed html email indicating that the account holder had received a large payment. When the recipients clicked on the link in the email, they were directed to paypai.com.

The website, paypai.com, was an exact replica of the PayPal website. It was orchestrated through the replication of the HTML source code and images used by PayPal on its official site. The replicated website was registered through network solutions to a Birykov in South Ural, Russia.

The PayPal phishing attack was identified because of the spelling mistakes found in the email and the presence of an IP address in the link provided in the e-mail. Both these clues indicated that it was a Paypal phishing scam. Another tip-off was that the e-mail lacked a personal greeting although the personal details were referenced in the email.

As a result of this, Paypal invested in the latest technology that uses various cutting edge methods to authenticate the emails. These methods also provide 24/7 account monitoring. It also teamed up with some of the other big names in the industry in order to eradicate phishing. As part of its latest effort, it has collaborated with Microsoft.

As one of its measures to stop Phishing, PayPal has issued a Security Key in the US, Germany, and Australia. It operates on the basis of a unique six-digit security code which is generated every 30 seconds. The account holder has to enter the code when he/she logs in to their PayPal or eBay account. After the session, the code expires so that no one else can use it.

The Phishing scam did a lot of harm to Paypal's image. To cover the adverse impact, PayPal announced that no affected users will lose their money as a consequence of the Phishing scam. The Paypal phishing scam was a prime example of cyber crime. As a result, worldwide attempts to curb Phishing have increased as has awareness of exercising caution when opening suspicious looking emails.

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