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Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by jey on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:10AM (#2000651)
Can you explain (3)? Isn't it enough to check whether you're on the right domain before logging in? Or is this to prevent logging in at an IDN URL that looks like the real URL?
Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by DanielStraight on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:14AM (#2000664)
Domain check is good, but can be misread, especially with IDNs. Of course, URLs can be mistyped too and a lot of phishing is based on typos of URLs. So really, in the end, you should always follow a bookmark before logging in.
Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by pornel on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:32AM (#2000716)
I trust my password manager. It auto-fills my passwords only on correct domains. When my password manager doesn't work, I'm highly suspicious.

Plus I use passwords that are auto-generated based on domain name, which I copy & paste to the generator. Hopefully this makes me immune to homograph attacks.

Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by francoisdevlin on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:38AM (#2000733)
What pm do you use?
Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by giu on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:55AM (#2000798)
1Password Password Manager and Form Filler may be an option: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/1p...
Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by pornel on Monday December 13, 2010 @06:41PM (#2002425)
Opera's built-in “Wand” + my own script. I like that Opera highlights recognized fields, but doesn't fill them in until I tell it to.
Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by acangiano on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:43AM (#2000747)
1Password takes care of that for me. I don't see any accounts available if I'm on the wrong domain name.
Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by reduxredacted on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:53AM (#2000789)
There's various reasons that #3 is particularly useful, though I think the original writer was probably more concerned with links in e-mail or links on sites other than the site you're being asked to log in to (such as links from advertisements or other third-party sites):

1) Similarities in the way letters look in certain fonts can cause you to think you're on the correct site when you are not. This is mitigated by EV SSL usually, but if you're not paying close attention you might miss it.

2) Browser exploits (though I'm unaware of any specific ones in current browsers) have commonly focused on tricking the browser into displaying one URL when the page is actually being hosted by another.

3) Links in e-mail, specifically, asking you to "login and update your information" (or "login and sign up for paperless billing now!" is pretty common, especially when combined with some perk). Often these links use redirection to gauge effectiveness of the e-mail campaign, so it's common for the link to look strange. If the e-mail is a phishing attack, that redirection could include code injection resulting in you being sent to the right URL to login, but with malicious code inserted to capture credentials or do other fun and exciting things. Of course, the site would have to have some existing XSS vulnerability on the login page, or the code would have to be attacking a browser/plug-in vulnerability, for you to see the EV SSL indicator properly in the address bar.

The last point is also usually mitigated by extensions like NoScript in Firefox.

Re:Plead HN: Please be careful with your information by subbu on Monday December 13, 2010 @10:26AM (#2000702)
I fell for this trick with twitter-alike url. 2 things did it for me. The link was from a friend of mine (of course he didn't know that was phishing site). And, it was a replica of Twitter. To make things worse it was shortened using bit.ly. I realized I made a mistake only after I entered password and hit submit. I quickly logged into twitter and changed my password.