Re: Protecting from phishing

[Joel Rosenblatt <joel () COLUMBIA EDU>]

Interesting idea .. it's called 1 and 1/2 factor authentication .. something that you know (your ID and password) and 
someplace that you are (your IP address).

It works for banks because they basically have one point of contact - their banking web page. For this to be effective, 
you would have to implement it in every
authenticated touch point that you have - not just email (that would only stop the bad guys from using your systems to 
send spam)

Not that this would be a bad thing, but I can see that unless you have a common access front end for all of your 
services, it would be a lot of work to build.

Keep us informed as to how it goes .. it would be an interesting talk at the SPC.

Thanks,
Joel Rosenblatt

Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854 3033
http://www.columbia.edu/~joel


--On Monday, October 19, 2009 2:12 PM -0400 John LaPrad <jrl () svsu edu> wrote:

> We have had multiple users, faculty and students fall for phishing exploits in the past few months. We have an 
> education program, we block spam (some still
> slips through), we wrote custom filters to make sure no one replies to phishing emails (they started embedding links to 
> websites instead) and these phishing
> attempts are still working occasionally.  I was wondering if it would be reasonable to front the email servers with a 
> system, like some banks do, where the
> system remembers your IP and whenever you connect from a new IP, you have to take some additional step before getting 
> in.  I think that this would stop the
> phishers.
> Is anyone doing something like this, or heard of it?
> Maybe I am missing something, and this simply would not work ?
> I appreciate any feedback.
>
>
> John LaPrad
> CISSP, CNE, CCNA, CCDA
> Manager of Network Services
> Saginaw Valley State University
> Phone: 989-964-7134
> Fax: 989-964-7446



Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854 3033
http://www.columbia.edu/~joel