Anonymous writes "New York, NY. January 27, 2004 - With the prevalence of spam filters working more effectively to protect against 'buy this', and 'enlarge that' emails, spam has begun its transformation from simply annoying to highly dangerous, including viruses that take over computers to send spam, and the newest and most disturbing trend being Phishing.

Phishing is a technique that is currently being used by spammers, or more appropriately scammers, to obtain, or fish for, private information of email consumers. They particularly enjoy taking advantage of home email users who do not have elaborate firewalls protecting their networks. Phishers are most commonly mining for bank account numbers, social security numbers, and credit card information.

Newly Identified Hole in Microsoft Internet Explorer makes users vulnerable to Phising.

Recently, phishers have begun exploiting an input validation error inside the popular Internet Explorer Web browser, which allows them to disguise their artfulness behind the façade of what appears to be a bona-fide Web site.

By including a particular character sequence in the URLs contained in their emails, they hide the actual Web address and substitute a fake URL. This new exploit allows phishers to defraud even the most seasoned internet user, by ‘spoofing’ the address bar of the Web browser to display a legitimate looking Web address such as www.citibank.com or www.paypal.com; the true Web page is actually hosted on a server in Eastern Europe, or Asia and in no way affiliated with these companies, Web servers, or users they are attempting to defraud.

For more information, and to test if your browser is vulnerable visit www.spaminspector.com/fraud to see a demonstration of the fraud exploit.

An offer of Protection Against Phishing Scams…

GIANT Company Softwares’ recent release of Spam Inspector 4.0 not only provides an affective guard against the typical annoying solicitous spam email, but it also blocks encrypted or Trojan email from entering inboxes as well.

Spam Inspector 4.0 includes a unique ‘Phising Hole Filter’ that quickly blocks any email trying to exploit the known IE holes -guaranteeing that potentially dangerous and fraudulent emails from Phishers will not infiltrate the software users inbox.

In addition, Spam Inspector 4.0’s filters automatically respond to FRAUD updates from the Giant Company Learning Servers, which are updated regularly with the latest trends in spam. In the last 25 days of the new year GIANT Company Software has calculated an over 210% increase in the amount of Phising emails when compared to the entire 365 days of 2003. We have been updating out learning servers as much as twice daily just to stay on top of the latest scams Andrew Newman. Our latest reports show that Spam Inspector 4.0 is deflecting close to 100% of all Phishing attempts made to our customers who have the software installed.

More About Spam Inspector 4.0
Spam Inspector 4.0 is available for users of Microsoft® Outlook® (2000, 2002 and 2003), users of Outlook Express® (5.0/5.5/6.0), users of Eudora® (5.1,5.2,6.0), users of IncrediMail®, and Hotmail, and MSN and when used through Outlook, Outlook Express, or Internet Explorer. To download a free trial, or for additional product information visit http://www.spaminspector.com

GIANT Company Software, Inc.
Located in New York City, GIANT Company Software is a leading provider of anti- spam and Internet security products for the consumer and small to large businesses. For more information, contact GIANT Company Software, Inc. at 212-214-0587 or visit http://www.giantcompany.com"