warning companies to watch out for a rapidly increasing internet security threat known as poisoned DNS caches.

"The problem", says David Holman, the firm's director, "came to prominence in July when CERT - the Computer Emergency Response Team - issued an advisory on DNS cache poisoning, noting that it can fool users into inadvertently giving away personal details on the internet and can also trigger malware infections and email problems."

"Every user on the Internet, from tier one ISPs down to the simple home user, relies on domain name lookup tables, which translate a given domain name into the relevant numeric IP address", he said.

"With DNS cache poisoning, DNS lookup tables are corrupted and the numeric IP addresses of fake web pages are inserted in place of the real addresses for popular sites. Then, when a user types in a correct URL they are routed to the false page, instead of the real one" he added. "From then on, any details they enter such as usernames and passwords can be captured by third parties and used as part of internet fraud including identity theft."

"Solving the problem is not going to be easy for the IT security industry," says Holman, "as conventional IT security systems and software can find it difficult to protect against the problem effectively."

“The average computer user is not an IT specialist, and shouldn’t need to be to use the internet safely” added Holman. First Cyber Security provides consumer facing independent web site validation designed specifically to protect against this threat.

About First Cyber Security (FCS)

First Cyber Security is a UK based Company who have developed an innovative, patent pending technology designed to increase consumer confidence to use the internet for financial transactions by allowing the consumer to positively authenticate the website that purports to be their bank (or retail site), ensuring that they are not tricked into giving away their personal details to a fraudulent website.

As well as confirming authentic websites, consumers using the FCS technology are also alerted when they visit a confirmed fraudulent site. Currently banks and retail organisations strive to shut down these fraudulent sites quickly but in reality it often takes many hours or days, with the FCS technology all consumers are warned within 30 minutes ensuring their private information is better protected.

Banks, retail and government organisations can subscribe to the FCS service and give their consumers a robust protection against fraud and reducing the costs associated with it, at no cost to the consumer.

Information Source:    First Cyber Security