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Just Another Day Out Phishing
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 10:22 — Josh Bourne — PermalinkAccording to CNET, security company Cloudmark recently announced on its blog that a phishing scheme that relies on duping people into updating Adobe Acrobat has resurfaced recently.
The scheme sends spam emails prompting users to click on a link to upgrade their Adobe Acrobat Reader. The site where the users land describes some of the software’s features, and also collects the contact information and credit card numbers of unsuspecting users. This information, of course, goes straight into the hands of cyber criminals.
And wouldn’t you know it – the domain name in the link contains the word “Adobe” to further trick users into trusting it and feeling comfortable divulging their information. Unfortunately, this is a problem we’ve seen many times before and will likely see again. Because of the legitimacy they have among consumers, cyber criminals continually use trusted brands in various types of online crimes. They know that Internet users are likely to trust a major, well-known brand.
Phishing is not the only type of crime that relies on domain names containing brand names. FairWinds recently performed an investigation that examined which typo variations of the domain names of highly popular websites are being used by cyber criminals to spread malware – viruses, worms, Trojans and the like. We discovered that typos of major brands like Google, PayPal, The New York Times and others were all being exploited and putting consumers at risk. The paper will be published shortly, so keep an eye out for it.
Number Crunching
Fri, 10/02/2009 - 14:52 — Josh Bourne — PermalinkAdobe Systems’ acquisition of Omniture is a move that has many scratching their heads. However, since Adobe will now be able to take advantage of Omniture’s data-driven analytics, Adobe could have made this move in order to gather more business intelligence that it can use to inform its creative ad development.
Metrics have been working their way into a variety of industries as companies realize how critical information is to their online programs and ecommerce initiatives. Data and analytics provide a solid foundation for campaigns and other activities because they ground those endeavors in real, measurable facts. Quantification is particularly critical in the development and management of domain name programs. Domain name decisions have been made too subjectively for too long.
The online landscape can be confusing and hard to interpret. Take typographical errors for example: it may seem difficult to discern why certain typos in domain names receive significantly higher volumes of traffic than others, even if each typo seems (at first glance) equally likely to occur. Or, it may seem impossible to comprehend why Internet users have a higher tendency to type certain combinations of brand names and generic terms than others. But the fact is, Internet users display certain patterns and trends in usage, and companies that understand that will achieve higher success in their online efforts.
This is where metrics come into play. Gathering, quantifying and analyzing domain name data enables companies to pinpoint which domain names are crucial to their business and add value. Furthermore, the same data can highlight those domain names that offer little value to a company’s overall business and can be eliminated, thereby saving the company money or registration and other fees. But obtaining and analyzing such data is neither a small nor easy task– it requires specialized skill and expertise in domain name and Internet matters, as well as everyday Internet user and malicious actor behavior and brand strategy.
All of our methods have a solid base in hard data and metrics. We quantify and analyze key data from specialized sources to develop the best solutions and advice for our clients. This way, we remove the guesswork from developing and managing domain name programs for businesses.
