Half of Phishing Sites in the Wild Have SSL Certificates and Show Padlock Security Icon, Study Finds

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Half of Phishing Sites in the Wild Have SSL Certificates and Show Padlock Security Icon, Study Finds

By CircleID Reporter
November 27, 2018, 5:58 pm PST Views: 12,470 Add Comment

A new study by anti-phishing company PhishLabs reveals 49 percent of all phishing sites in the third quarter of 2018 had Secure Sockets Layer or SSL with HTTPS in their URL. “That’s up from 25 percent just one year ago, and from 35 percent in the second quarter of 2018,” Brian Krebs reports in Krebs on Security. He writes: “This alarming shift is notable because a majority of Internet users have taken the age-old ‘look for the lock’ advice to heart, and still associate the lock icon with legitimate sites. ... The major Web browser makers work with a number of security organizations to index and block new phishing sites, often serving bright red warning pages that flag the page of a phishing scam and seek to discourage people from visiting the sites. But not all phishing scams get flagged so quickly.”

By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
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