Catbird Pharming Shield™

What is the difference between Pharming and Phishing

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Pharming attacks are more insidious–and more difficult to detect–than their related counterpart, phishing.

Phishers use social engineering to direct users to illegitimate Web sites or e-mail addresses that appear to be legitimate, for the purpose of acquiring sensitive information such as account numbers, passwords, or social security numbers. Pharmers, by contrast, imperceptibly intercept the inner workings of a user’s computer and/or the Internet itself and require no user consent. Unsuspecting users are rerouted to counterfeit, look-alike sites where they enter their personal data. Preventing such attacks is extremely difficult as it requires the ability not only to monitor activity within an enterprise's IT environment, but also to monitor activity across the Internet as a whole.

Pharming is one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft on the Internet. It has additional implications for institutions that are compromised, beyond those resulting from phishing attacks, since such institutions might be considered liable for neglect.