Phishing and Dual-Processing

By Kara Robart

So in class on Wednesday we talked about phishing, a technique hackers use to get you to give them your login and password information. The example used in class was if you recieved an e-mail from your bank saying they needed you to "verify your account information," so you replyed with all the security information requested. That's great, except the e-mail was not sent by your bank, but by a hacker. And he now has full access to your bank account. Whoops.

The example I encountered yesterday wasn't as serious as a bank account, but would still be kind of annoying to deal with. It was about facebook. One of my friends updated her status to warn people about a problem she'd been having with her facebook account. Here's her status, and our string of comments:

Rachel hey if you got a chat message from me, DON'T FOLLOW THE LINK!
Wednesday at 5:33pm · Comment ·LikeUnlike · View Feedback (4)Hide Feedback (4)

Kara Robart Out of curiosity. What happens if you follow the link?
Yesterday at 1:21am · LikeUnlike

Rachel it sends you to a page where you supposedly have to log in to facebook again, but really it's just a phishing scam. fun.
Yesterday at 10:31am · LikeUnlike

Kara Robart cool. :) we talked about those in computer science yesterd- OMGOSH YOU JUST DID MY HOMEWORK FOR ME. gracias. :)
Yesterday at 11:03am · LikeUnlike

Rachel you're welcome?
Yesterday at 11:06am · LikeUnlike

So. Someone was trying get people's facebook account information, and they'd somehow set up a program on Rachel's account that would send chat messages to random people with a link requiring them to "log in again," sending their information directly to the hacker. Why did someone want to hack people's facebook accounts? I have no idea. Still a cool example.

On an unrelated note, I came across a familiar term in my reading for my first year seminar. The class is about how to have respectful conversations about difficult topics and we're reading a book called "Crucial Conversations." One section of the book said that when we're having an important conversation, we need to pay attention to two things at the same time: what's being said, and how it's being said. The authors called this dual-processing. Neat, huh?