About.com Victim of Email Spoofing

Recently About.com's daily newsletter was the victim of a high volume of spoofed email from spammers attempting to sell Viagra. Because the email contained About.com's logo and address, some recipients believed it actually originated from About.com. That is the basic recipe for success for a phishing attack.

The phishing attack relies on the attackers ability to convince the victim that the email they are reading or the site they are directed to is legitimate. Actually, beyond just being a 'legitimate' site, the phishing attack relies on the victim having an established relationship of trust with the spoofed source. In other words, if I get an email asking me to log in and validate my password for my Bank of America account, it would be meaningless because I don't do business with Bank of America. However, for the millions of people who do bank with Bank of America, there is a chance they will believe the lure and fall for the phishing attack.

There are some ways that businesses can help to ensure that their domains or web sites are not targeted by phishing attacks, as well as some things that users can do to ensure they don't become victims of phishing attacks:

• Protect Your Business From Phishing Scams
• Protect Yoursef From Phishing Scams