HTTPS: the feature that phishers love

"In the third quarter of 2017, we noticed that almost a quarter of all phishing sites were hosted on HTTPS domains, which is almost double the percentage we saw in the second quarter."

“A year ago, less than 3% of phishers used websites that had SSL certificates. Before years, that number was less than one percent,” said the PhishLabs administrator, Mr Crane Hassold.HTTPS

The reasons behind this change are enough. Phishers often violate pages to host phishing attacks, and it is logical that by increasing legitimate domains with HTTPS there is also an increase in HTTPS pages that have been infringed.

Today, too, it is much easier, faster and cheaper to obtain SSL certificates. So the scammers are taking advantage of the situation to equip the e-fishing domains they use with HTTPS.

“Although the vast majority of SSL certificates used in HTTPS phishing attacks are acquired by services like Let's Encrypt or Comodo, their use is notable because technically, they are not necessary to create phishing websites.

"Without SSL, the phishing page would still work as designed," Hassold says.

“So why do scammers bother creating an HTTPS page when they don't really need to? The answer is because phishers believe that the 'HTTPS' designation makes a phishing site look more legitimate to potential victims and therefore more likely to lead to a successful outcome. And unfortunately, they are right.”

Many users do not know that the presence of HTTPS only means that the communication between the proτος περιήγησης και του ιστότοπου είναι κρυπτογραφημένη. Πιστεύουν ότι βλέποντας το πράσινο λουκέτο και το ΗTTPS πριν από ένα όνομα του domain σημαίνει ότι η ίδια η ιστοσελίδα είναι s (ie. Safe to use = legal).

The fact that browsers like Google Chrome show pages with SSL certificates as "Safe" in the URL bar does not help eliminate these attacks.

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Written by giorgos

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