CipherTrust, Inc., has unveiled PhishRegistry.org, a free, online resource where legitimate organisations may register their Websites and receive notifications of online fraud attempts. This site aims to safeguard organisations and end users by detecting phishing scams that fraudulently use a company’s name.
PhishRegistry.org monitors the content of legitimate Websites and alerts companies when attempts to duplicate their Websites are detected. Legitimate organisations can use these alerts to actively inform customers of phishing attacks and to complement other efforts to combat fraud. Users are also able to register their own Websites, as well as other legitimate Websites that they may use such as financial institutions.
“Online fraud is a race between the bad guys who rush to post false sites to snare unsuspecting users, and the good guys who run legitimate businesses – protecting their brand and their customers, ” said Dr. Paul Judge, chief technology officer at CipherTrust. “Think of PhishRegistry.org as a ‘neighbourhood watch’ that dramatically speeds the pace at which organisations are notified of phishing attempts – a significant advantage in the race to ensure trust in the Internet and online communications.”
Successful phishing attacks are based on a form of copying, or re-engineering, a Website’s design and layout in order to appear legitimate. CipherTrust uses a proprietary technique called Phisherprinting to analyse and determine the legitimacy of Websites based on similarity matching technology.
