Thursday, 6 December 2007

Blue Coat Adds Anti-Phising Technology to K9 Web Protection

WAN Application Delivery and Secure Web Gateway solutions provider Blue Coat Systems is now offering its K9 Web Protection Internet filtering software with real-time phishing protection which allows it to warn users about brand new or previously undiscovered phishing Websites by using a real-time rating capability.

Phishing, the practice of luring an unsuspecting person to a counterfeit Website that resembles a legitimate site and tricks the user to reveal logins, passwords, credit card information and other private information, has resulted in a growing amount of identity theft, robbery and fraud.

According to industry researchers, the average losses from phishing are now over 3,000 dollars per incident and the total damages suffered by users victimized by phishing are well over 1 billion dollars per year.

Banking and retail sites, including Amazon.com, Ebay and PayPal, have been some of the most popular for criminals to impersonate through counterfeit sites using phishing schemes. Social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, are also key targets for 'social phishing' since personal details published on such sites can be used in identity theft.

The Blue Coat Real-Time Anti-Phishing protection technology assesses the Web page being requested as the user clicks on the link. If the page is not found in the database, a query is sent to a data center in Blue Coat Labs where the Web page is analyzed automatically in real time. The service will then categorize the page. If the Web page is categorized as a phishing site, the K9 Web Protection software will block the requested Web page or warn the user.

According to Blue Coat, the entire process can be completed in between 250-750 milliseconds.

"The Internet is constantly evolving. K9 Web Protection helps parents stay a step ahead of the harmful content and malicious scams that social networking vehicles, email and Web content bring into the home. Adding anti-phishing capability to K9 Web Protection comes at a critical time as parents gear up for holiday purchases that include desktop and laptop computers," said John Carosella, vice president of strategy and outreach, Blue Coat Systems.