Clear Search, a leading provider of client-side software for online security analysis and technologies for consumers, ISPs and portals, today announced the release of its anti-phishing software.
With more and more people shopping and banking online, phishing has quickly become the biggest online scam on the Internet today, thus prompting the FBI to call phishing the "hottest, and most troubling, new scam on the Internet." To date, over 2 million people have responded to phishing attacks, and over half are suspected to be victims of identity theft. Total fraud from phishing attacks is estimated to be $1.2 billion and growing rapidly.
What looks like a simple notification requesting that users verify or update their account information from their bank, credit card company, or online shopping portal may be a phishing attack. Both the email and web page look exactly like a valid sender. Phishers are looking for bank or credit card account numbers, social security numbers, passwords anything that will allow them to gain access to user's accounts.
"Unlike other solutions, the Clear Search anti-phishing software does not require specific information such as user's personal information, or black lists of phishing URL's, which only last a few hours anyway," stated Carl Perkins, Partner in the Company. "Our software uses a complex set of rules and conditions known as heuristics to detect phishing attacks without requiring that we store confidential user information or know anything about the originator's location. Most importantly, our software is the only anti-phishing software on the market today that can detect phishing events before they happen." The Company's software analyzes events before the user opens his email, a technique the Company refers to as "pre-navigation." Once a user opens an email, the information is scanned before any links can be clicked or any action is taken. The Company's software can also detect critical information such as valid credit card numbers before it is submitted to potential phishing sites.