Phishing attacks--the attempted theft of information such as user names, passwords or credit-card numbers--are increasingly more sophisticated, VeriSign said. But the company, which lives by the sale of computer security software, says phishing attacks are less profitable than they used to be, and of shorter duration, since affected companies work with Internet service providers to shut down sites capturing the information.

Pharming, also known as DNS spoofing because it fools the domain-name system, is an alternative technique that tries to direct users to a fake Web site even when the correct address is entered into a browser. "It's as if you looked up a number in the phone book," says Phillip Hallam-Baker, a Web security expert at Verisign, "but someone somehow changed the number, managed to swap the phone book on you."

VeriSign's report lists ways to lock down DNS infrastructure to shut down pharming. It encourages administrators to upgrade their DNS software and to install cryptography solutions. Hallam-Baker feels that pharming attacks that depend on cached information could be eliminated fairly easily. Pharming attacks infrastructure, so the company in charge of that segment could prevent further attacks by upgrading necessary components.

Read this full article at Forbes

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