PHARMING

Another variation of phishing is "pharming." Pharmers seek to obtain your personally identifiable or private (typically financial related) information through domain spoofing.

Instead of being flooded with spammed malicious and mischievous e-mail's advising you to visit bogus Web sites, which appear legitimate, pharming actually 'poisons' a Domain Name Server (DNS) by inserting false information into the DNS server, which then results in the user's request being redirected to a bogus Web Site.

Your Internet browser will show you are at the correct Web site, which makes pharming a more serious and more difficult threat to detect. Unlike phishing attempts to trick or trap people one at a time with a single e-mail, in rare instances pharming can allow the fraudster to target and obtain personal information in large groups at one time through DNS spoofing.

Industry experts recommend using ISP's with high levels of security exercising high data security standards.