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Easy Money
Identity theft in general, and phishing in particular, can be lucrative, but such theft has grown so much recently for a simple reason: It's easy to pull off.
Jevans says thieves sell and swap phishing kits "with everything--fake sites, e-mails, responder software that'll sit on the server and send data to you. All you need to do is set up a server or get some zombies and stick it on them." (A zombie is a PC used without the owner's knowledge to host malicious online activities.)
In some cases, Jevans says, the kits are simply "given away, just out of the badness of [these scammers'] hearts."
The rest is easy. Phishers simply send out mass e-mail to hundreds of thousands, or millions, of recipients and wait for a few unsuspecting people to respond.
Thieves face little risk. Many phishers set up shop in foreign countries, where it's harder for U.S. officers to nab them. Jevans estimates about 75 percent of phishing sites the group tracks are outside the country. And U.S.-based phishers often evade detection by using zombie PCs, or by constantly swapping server addresses.
New laws have helped a bit, experts say. Many state and federal statutes already cover identity theft with penalties of up to 15 years in jail; but in July, President George W. Bush signed legislation that further stiffened sentencing guidelines. Meanwhile, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has proposed a law under which phishers could get up to five years for setting up a spoof site and sending fraudulent e-mail, thereby showing intent to commit a crime. (Currently phishers must net a victim in order to violate laws.)
Because roughly 20 percent of phishers are foolish enough to publicly register domains for their spoof sites, experts say such laws could have bite. And the U.S. Department of Justice has made some progress in fighting identity theft.
However, law enforcement officials say users can't rely on such deterrence measures to protect them, simply because too many criminals are using ever-morphing methods for authorities to keep up.
