Phishing and Modern Browsers

I got a rather official-looking phishing e-mail this evening, asking me to verify my Bank of America sitekey.  As I do not bank with BOA, this set off some alarm bells.  I always make sure to report phishing sites through the handy “Report unsafe website” feature of Internet Explorer 9, so that the site can be added to the SmartScreen Filter.

image.

It turns out that somebody beat me to the punch.  Internet Explorer warns me in no uncertain terms that I should not visit this site.  This is a warning that even my grandma would not miss.

image

The same site in Google Chrome?

image

and Firefox 4?

image

If there is a place with Chrome or Firefox to submit feedback that a given site is a phishing site, I can’t find it.  According to Firefox’s Phishing and Malware Protection site, Firefox 3 and later will warn you if you hit a known phishing site. I don’t see any way for users to add to the Firefox list. If you have any idea how to submit a page to their filter, please add it in the comments.

For Chrome, they have a web page (https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/) that will allow you to report a phishing site, but I don’t see any option to do so directly in the browser (unless Tools –> Report an Issue is the official way, in the same place as “Page Formatting and Layout” or “Synced Preferences”).

Long story short… if you would like your friends and family to avoid phishing and malware sites, IE 9 is the way to go :)