Untangle Announces Pharming Protection for the Web

Untangle protects customers from mistakenly sharing their confidential information while on the web

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 24, 2007 – Untangle, Inc., an emerging leader in network gateways for small and medium businesses, today announced that web protection has been added to its Identity Theft Blocker application. In addition to filtering out Phishing emails, the application now blocks Pharming websites. This change was made in response to the growing threat that identity theft represents on the web and the increasing sophistication of Pharming attacks.

Pharming websites mimic legitimate sites (often banking or ecommerce) and use social engineering to trick users into forfeiting their user names, passwords and other sensitive information when they mistakenly log into the fraudulent sites. The web properties often use URLs that look similar to the target site. For example, replacing the “w” in wells fargo with two “v”s (vvellsfargo.com), adding an extra “i” to wachoviia.net, or by prefixing the target domain to the pharmer’s url, such as paypal.pharmingsite.com. Further, pharming sites have become so well designed that visually determining the real from the fake has become nearly impossible.

“Pharming is big business and the sites and techniques continue to become more and more sophisticated. Even Google Adwords has been used by cyber-criminals to bait victims,” commented Dirk Morris, founder and chief technology officer of Untangle. “Our customers count on us to keep them up-to-date with the latest in security, and Untangle is pleased to provide this additional layer of protection for their users and networks.”

This free upgrade demonstrates Untangles unique ability to expand as new applications and capabilities are released. Identity Theft Blocker complements Untangle’s spyware, spam, content filtering and virus solutions that protect against a full range of web and email threats About Untangle Founded in 2003, Untangle is quickly emerging as the leader in network gateways for small and medium businesses. Untangle’s solutions today – which focus on network security, safe messaging, and control of web usage – enable businesses to “untangle” their IT infrastructure. Network administrators can download and activate network applications that have been pre-configured for small and medium business environments. Untangle’s applications are currently being used in hundreds of businesses in a variety of industries, including financial services, real estate, education, bio-science, and professional services. Untangle is located in San Mateo, California.