A Japanese man from Osaka was caught phishing in Yahoo waters recently. Instead of surfing the Internet, Kazuma Tabano was busy setting up look alike websites, trying to reel in naïve customers. The Japanese man built a Yafoo site that was nearly identical to the Yahoo Japan website. Now while Mr. Tabano was arrested by Japanese police, he wasn’t charged for phishing without a license, but rather for copyright infringement since his Yafoo logo clearly resembled the Yahoo logo.
According to The Register, “It is suspected that the man gained personal information on between 20 and 30 people who entered his site. The data was transmitted via mobile phone to the man’s PC. It isn’t clear what the phisher intended to do with the data. Police suspect he may have illegally entered the real Yahoo auction site by pretending to be one of his victims. The suspect is in charge of data input and software operations at a company, police said.”
Phishing in Japan is a fairly new phenomenon with only a handful of sites set up in the last 2 years. In the U. S., however phishing victims have cost banks and credit card companies an estimated $1.2 Billion in 2003. Some of the more common phishing sites have been those that have been set up to look like an eBay or Paypal site, asking email recipients to verify address, phone number and credit card information.
So, remember when it comes to phishing, don’t take the bait. If you do, however, wriggle off the hook quickly, report what has happened to your own bank and credit card companies and then contact the Internet Fraud Complaint Center so that you can help others to stay off the line as well.
