In addition to threats from viruses, spyware, and hackers, online scams (phishing) are also rampant. 
Scam websites often disguise themselves as reputable websites that many people are familiar with (such as ebay.com or citibank.com) with URLs and interfaces that are very similar. Scammers send enticing shopping emails to unsuspecting individuals, including links to their websites. If a victim falls for the trap, they will obtain critical personal information (bank account numbers, credit card numbers, etc.). To help users minimize the severe consequences of phishing, CoreStreet has enhanced the Mozilla Firefox browser with a plug-in called SpoofStick for Firefox (SF).
SF is a tiny yet powerful plug-in integrated into the Mozilla Firefox Toolbar that helps users detect online scam sites. Whenever you browse the web, SF always displays information related to the domain of the website you are visiting, and if it detects a scam website, SF will immediately notify you.
To better understand how SF works, let’s consider an illustrative example: When you access any link on the official ebay.com website, SF will always display the message “You’re on ebay.com.” If you visit a phishing link pretending to be ebay.com (for example, http://[email protected]), SF will immediately show “You’re on 10.19.32.4.” The latest version, SF 1.06, is a tiny 16 KB and is compatible with all Windows versions. It can be downloaded for free at www.majorgeeks.com/download4452.htm.
After downloading, close all Mozilla Firefox windows, then copy the file spoofstick-firefox.xpi into the Program FilesMozilla Firefoxextensions folder. Next, restart Mozilla Firefox, and in the dialog box that appears, click the Install Now button. The next dialog box will guide you on how to integrate SF into Mozilla Firefox. You should uncheck the option Show this message every time Firefox starts so that this dialog box does not appear in subsequent restarts of Mozilla Firefox, then click OK. Next, go to the menu View > Toolbars > Customize. In the Customize Toolbar dialog box that appears, hold the left mouse button, drag the SpoofStick icon, and drop it onto the Mozilla Firefox Toolbar, then click Done to complete the installation process.
From now on, you will no longer have to worry about phishing issues, as you have a powerful assistant named SF!
Note
The latest version of SpoofStick for IE 1.02 (SI), the anti-phishing plug-in designed specifically for Internet Explorer, is 170 KB and is available for free at www.spoofstick.com/downloads/spoofstick-ie.exe.
After downloading, run the installation file spoofstick-ie.exe. Then start Internet Explorer, go to the menu View > Toolbars, and check the SpoofStick box to have SI appear on the Internet Explorer Toolbar. The functionality of SI is similar to that of SF.
Pham Hong Quan
