Phishing is a form of social engineering in which attempts are made to acquire sensitive information such as credit card numbers and passwords while masquerading as a piece of legitimate correspondence. With the growing number of phishing attempts reported, more sophisticated technology is required to guard organizations against the exposure of sensitive information.

Estimates show that between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million users suffered a loss due to phishing. According to research firm Gartner, U.S. businesses lose an estimated $2 billion USD a year as their clients become victims.

Phishing differs from traditional spam, allowing fraudulent messages to fly under the radar of most anti-spam technologies.

• Many phishing messages are not sent in bulk. Rather, they are carefully individualized to more effectively target each victim.
• Spam makes an attempt to sell you something, whereas phishing is an attempt to take something from you.
• A phishing message attempts to look very professional, often closely resembling legitimate correspondence.

The growing trend of phishing attacks and the inability of traditional spam filters to provide adequate protection leaves many organizations vulnerable to substantial losses.

The Email Security Service provides comprehensive anti-phishing technology – specifically engineered to identify and destroy fraudulent email.

Our filters are trained to specifically identify phishing via multiple identification techniques:

• Header Analysis
  All email headers are checked against a database to establish the reputation of the email. Messages are also checked against a network of previous detected phishing messages.
• Pattern Matching
  The content of each message is broken down and scanned for telltale signs of fraud. The pattern-matching engine is continually trained against an extensive database of known phishing messages.
• Trick Checking
  Finally, each message is checked for common tricks used in phishing messages such as:
  • URL Obfuscation
    All URLs in a message are checked for obfuscation techniques, non-standard port numbers, redirections, and browser vulnerability exploitations.
  • Link Discontinuity
    Links are verified with the HTML source of the message to verify all displayed links point to the URL they display.
  • Known Phishing Links
    Links are checked against an extensive database of known phishing URLs.

Organizations using the Deerfield Email Security Service are shielded against fraudulent messages, and are able to monitor phishing attempts on their organization through our offsite quarantine and reporting features.