Three Florida banks have had their Web sites compromised by hackers in an attack that security experts are calling the first of its type.

Earlier this month, attackers were able to hack servers run by the Internet service provider (ISP) that hosted the three banks' Web sites. They then redirected traffic from the legitimate Web sites to a bogus server, designed to resemble the banking sites, according to Bob Breeden, special agent supervisor with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Computer Crime Center.

The full article is available at www.computerworld.com

First of all let me get the wording right, the article is talking about cracking, not hacking. I wonder when the general media will understand the difference. Furthermore I wouldn't necessarily call this the first of its type, the phenomenon of DNS poisioning is a known phenomenon.

Proper usage of SSL Certificates can reduce this problem, but, and here is the big but it requires that the users gain some knowledge when it comes to security. The only way to fight both the spam problem and the phishing problem is by user awareness.

Some time ago the comic strip userfriendly ran a strip on this matter (available at www.userfriendly.org ) .

Please, read more about security for your own sake at www.secure-my-internet.com