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112-424: Freegate was one of a dozen circumvention tools evaluated by a Freedom House -funded report based on user experience from China in 2010, which include Hotspot Shield , Tor , Ultra Surf . The tool is free to download. DynaWeb is a collection of anti- censorship services provided by Dynamic Internet Technology Inc. (DIT). DynaWeb is a web-based anti-censorship portal. Once users point their web browser at one of

224-540: A Trojan horse . There were initial fears that the reports may be a ploy by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities to encourage removal of the software from computers, but it was soon delisted as a threat. Symantec explained that its detection was based on the software operating similarly to various Trojan horses, based on the use of proxies to penetrate firewalls used to block web sites, but that it had modified its detection to exclude Freegate. In 2013, it

336-546: A code containing an embedded malicious web site link. Unlike traditional phishing, which relies on deceptive emails or websites, quishing uses QR codes to bypass email filters and increase the likelihood that victims will fall for the scam, as people tend to trust QR codes and may not scrutinize them as carefully as a URL or email link. The bogus codes may be sent by email, social media, or in some cases hard copy stickers are placed over legitimate QR codes on such things as advertising posters and car park notices. When victims scan

448-492: A dynamic grid of images that is different for each login attempt. The user must identify the pictures that fit their pre-chosen categories (such as dogs, cars and flowers). Only after they have correctly identified the pictures that fit their categories are they allowed to enter their alphanumeric password to complete the login. Unlike the static images used on the Bank of America website, a dynamic image-based authentication method creates

560-468: A former residence that Robert Lehman lent to the organization. Freedom House sponsored influential radio programs including The Voice of Freedom (1942–43) and Our Secret Weapon (1942–43), a CBS radio series created to counter Axis shortwave radio propaganda broadcasts. Rex Stout, chairman of the Writers' War Board and representative of Freedom House, would rebut the most entertaining lies of

672-903: A joint venture between the Peace Corps and the United States Information Service . Since 2001, Freedom House has supported citizens involved in challenges to the existing regimes in Serbia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. The organization states, "From South Africa to Jordan, Kyrgyzstan to Indonesia, Freedom House has partnered with regional activists in bolstering civil society; worked to support women's rights; sought justice for victims of torture; defended journalists and free expression advocates; and assisted those struggling to promote human rights in challenging political environments." However, alternative classifications have produced significantly different results from those of

784-547: A link or opening an attachment, or revealing sensitive information. It often involves pretending to be a trusted entity and creating a sense of urgency, like threatening to close or seize a victim's bank or insurance account. An alternative technique to impersonation-based phishing is the use of fake news articles to trick victims into clicking on a malicious link. These links often lead to fake websites that appear legitimate, but are actually run by attackers who may try to install malware or present fake "virus" notifications to

896-497: A one-time passcode for the login, requires active participation from the user, and is very difficult for a phishing website to correctly replicate because it would need to display a different grid of randomly generated images that includes the user's secret categories. Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down phishing websites. Automated detection of phishing content

1008-610: A phishing scam, in a case connected to the U.S. Secret Service Operation Firewall, which targeted notorious "carder" websites. In 2006, Japanese police arrested eight people for creating fake Yahoo Japan websites, netting themselves ¥100 million ( US$ 870,000 ) and the FBI detained a gang of sixteen in the U.S. and Europe in Operation Cardkeeper. Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005 to Congress in

1120-702: A planned further 100 lawsuits outside the U.S. in March 2006, followed by the commencement, as of November 2006, of 129 lawsuits mixing criminal and civil actions. AOL reinforced its efforts against phishing in early 2006 with three lawsuits seeking a total of US$ 18 million under the 2005 amendments to the Virginia Computer Crimes Act, and Earthlink has joined in by helping to identify six men subsequently charged with phishing fraud in Connecticut . In January 2007, Jeffrey Brett Goodin of California became

1232-503: A set of questions designed to measure each country's level of Internet and digital media freedom, as well as the access and openness of other digital means of transmitting information, particularly mobile phones and text messaging services. Results are presented for three areas: The results from the three areas are combined into a total score for a country (from 0 for best to 100 for worst) and countries are rated as "Free" (0 to 30), "Partly Free" (31 to 60), or "Not Free" (61 to 100) based on

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1344-456: A sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko ." Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman have criticized the organization for excessively criticizing states opposed to US interests while being unduly sympathetic to regimes supportive of US interests. Most notably, Freedom House described

1456-492: A spear-phishing attack, and in November 2013, 110 million customer and credit card records were stolen from Target customers through a phished subcontractor account. CEO and IT security staff subsequently fired. In August 2014, iCloud leaks of celebrity photos were based on phishing e-mails sent to victims that looked like they came from Apple or Google. In November 2014, phishing attacks on ICANN gained administrative access to

1568-483: A systematic bias in all the ratings. Most of the evidence consists of anecdotal evidence of relatively few cases. Whether there is a systematic or sporadic slant in Gastil's ratings is an open question". In a later report by Bollen and Pamela Paxton in 2000, they concluded that from 1972 to 1988 (a specific period they observed), there was "unambiguous evidence of judge-specific measurement errors, which are related to traits of

1680-415: A trusted source, such as a bank or government agency. These messages typically redirect to a fake login page where users are prompted to enter their credentials. Spear phishing is a targeted phishing attack that uses personalized messaging, especially e‑mails, to trick a specific individual or organization into believing they are legitimate. It often utilizes personal information about the target to increase

1792-469: A user can send a message to one of DynaWeb's instant messenger (IM) accounts, and will get an instant reply showing the newest addresses of DynaWeb portals. Similar things are being done with emails. By these many, dynamic channels, DynaWeb outsmarts any attempt to collect all DynaWeb addresses by the censors, because each user receives only a (different) subset of DynaWeb's addresses. Automatic blocking detection combined with quick reaction apparently frustrates

1904-455: A user to use at least 2 factors when logging in. (For example, a user must both present a smart card and a password ). This mitigates some risk, in the event of a successful phishing attack, the stolen password on its own cannot be reused to further breach the protected system. However, there are several attack methods which can defeat many of the typical systems. MFA schemes such as WebAuthn address this issue by design. On January 26, 2004,

2016-496: A variety of other sources. Expert advisers and regional specialists then vet the analysts’ conclusions. The final product represents the consensus of the analysts, advisers, and Freedom House staff. Freedom in the World uses a two-tiered system consisting of scores and statuses. Total scores across the various categories are based on a 100-point scale and correspond to statues of Free, Partly Free, and Not Free. The survey's methodology

2128-459: A varying IP and DNS domain names to defeat IP blocking and DNS hijacking . On the backend, DynaWeb also has mechanisms to proactively monitor the blocking status of each of its mirror sites, and as soon as blocking is detected, it will change the IP and DNS domain name instantly. To keep users connected to such a dynamic infrastructure, DynaWeb has a variety of channels to keep users updated. For example,

2240-510: A voice. The representative said he would continue to support NGOs who criticized his government and those of others. In August 2020, then Freedom House president Michael Abramowitz was sanctioned – together with the heads of four other U.S.-based democracy and human rights organizations and six U.S. Republican lawmakers – by the Chinese government for supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in

2352-501: A wide audience. The goal of the attacker can vary, with common targets including financial institutions, email and cloud productivity providers, and streaming services. The stolen information or access may be used to steal money, install malware , or spear phish others within the target organization. Compromised streaming service accounts may also be sold on darknet markets . This type of social engineering attack can involve sending fraudulent emails or messages that appear to be from

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2464-593: Is a study by the National Library of Medicine, in which an organization received 858,200 emails during a 1-month testing period, with 139,400 (16%) being marketing and 18,871 (2%) being identified as potential threats. These campaigns are often used in the healthcare industry, as healthcare data is a valuable target for hackers. These campaigns are just one of the ways that organizations are working to combat phishing. Nearly all legitimate e-mail messages from companies to their customers contain an item of information that

2576-659: Is also one of its clients and which receives some funding from the American non-profit organization the National Endowment for Democracy . According to a US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, the US government gave funding of $ 685,000 to Freegate in 2005. Freegate Android VPN In 2004, the Financial Times , citing a member of staff at Symantec in mainland China, reported that Norton AntiVirus identified Freegate as

2688-404: Is an important part of any organization's anti-phishing strategy. While there is limited data on the effectiveness of education in reducing susceptibility to phishing, much information on the threat is available online. Simulated phishing campaigns, in which organizations test their employees' training by sending fake phishing emails, are commonly used to assess their effectiveness. One example

2800-497: Is an inexplicable misrepresentation not only of what was said at that meeting, but of Freedom House's record in Uzbekistan ... Freedom House has been a consistent and harsh critic of the human rights situation in Uzbekistan, as clearly demonstrated in press releases and in our annual assessments of that country". According to one study, Freedom House's rankings "overemphasize the more formal aspects of democracy while failing to capture

2912-659: Is largely derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is reviewed periodically by an advisory committee of political scientists with expertise in methodological issues. Freedom House's methods (around 1990) and other democracy-researchers were mentioned as examples of an expert-based evaluation by sociologist Kenneth A. Bollen , who is also an applied statistician . Bollen writes that expert-based evaluations are prone to statistical bias of an unknown direction, that is, not known either to agree with U.S. policy or to disagree with U.S. policy: "Regardless of

3024-465: Is not readily available to phishers. Some companies, for example PayPal , always address their customers by their username in emails, so if an email addresses the recipient in a generic fashion ("Dear PayPal customer") it is likely to be an attempt at phishing. Furthermore, PayPal offers various methods to determine spoof emails and advises users to forward suspicious emails to their spoof@PayPal.com domain to investigate and warn other customers. However it

3136-492: Is still below accepted levels for direct action, with content-based analysis reaching between 80% and 90% of success so most of the tools include manual steps to certify the detection and authorize the response. Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to both volunteer and industry groups, such as cyscon or PhishTank . Phishing web pages and emails can be reported to Google. Organizations can implement two factor or multi-factor authentication (MFA), which requires

3248-420: Is susceptible to other attacks, such as those suffered by Scandinavian bank Nordea in late 2005, and Citibank in 2006. A similar system, in which an automatically generated "Identity Cue" consisting of a colored word within a colored box is displayed to each website user, is in use at other financial institutions. Security skins are a related technique that involves overlaying a user-selected image onto

3360-463: Is the Safe Browsing service. Web browsers such as Google Chrome , Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Safari 3.2, and Opera all contain this type of anti-phishing measure. Firefox 2 used Google anti-phishing software. Opera 9.1 uses live blacklists from Phishtank , cyscon and GeoTrust , as well as live whitelists from GeoTrust. Some implementations of this approach send

3472-472: Is unsafe to assume that the presence of personal information alone guarantees that a message is legitimate, and some studies have shown that the presence of personal information does not significantly affect the success rate of phishing attacks; which suggests that most people do not pay attention to such details. Emails from banks and credit card companies often include partial account numbers, but research has shown that people tend to not differentiate between

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3584-499: Is used in vishing or voice phishing attacks, where attackers make automated phone calls to large numbers of people, often using text-to-speech synthesizers, claiming fraudulent activity on their accounts. The attackers spoof the calling phone number to appear as if it is coming from a legitimate bank or institution. The victim is then prompted to enter sensitive information or connected to a live person who uses social engineering tactics to obtain information. Vishing takes advantage of

3696-447: The accounts-google.com  domain to threaten targeted users. A study on spear phishing susceptibility among different age groups found that 43% of youth aged 18–25 years and 58% of older users clicked on simulated phishing links in daily e‑mails over 21 days. Older women had the highest susceptibility, while susceptibility in young users declined during the study, but remained stable among older users. Voice over IP (VoIP)

3808-541: The 1979 Rhodesian general election as "fair", but described the 1980 Southern Rhodesian general election as "dubious", and found the 1982 Salvadoran presidential election to be "admirable". In May 2001, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations of the United Nations heard arguments for and against Freedom House. Representatives of Cuba said that the organization is a U.S. foreign policy instrument linked to

3920-516: The 2019–20 Hong Kong protests . The leaders of the five organizations saw the sanctioning, whose details were unspecified, as a tit-for-tat measure in response to the earlier sanctioning by the U.S. of 11 Hong Kong officials. The latter step had in turn been a reaction to the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law at the end of June. Russia, identified by Freedom House as "Not Free", called Freedom House biased and accused

4032-694: The China Media Bulletin , a weekly analysis on press freedom in and related to the People's Republic of China. In 2006, the Financial Times reported that Freedom House had received funding by the State Department for "clandestine activities" inside Iran . According to the Financial Times , "Some academics, activists and those involved in the growing US business of spreading freedom and democracy are alarmed that such semi-covert activities risk damaging

4144-661: The Solidarity movement in Poland . Freedom House assisted the post-Communist societies in the establishment of independent media, non-governmental think tanks, and the core institutions of electoral politics. The organization describes itself currently as a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Freedom House states that it: has vigorously opposed dictatorships in Central America and Chile, apartheid in South Africa,

4256-594: The United States on March 1, 2005. This bill aimed to impose fines of up to $ 250,000 and prison sentences of up to five years on criminals who used fake websites and emails to defraud consumers. In the UK, the Fraud Act 2006 introduced a general offense of fraud punishable by up to ten years in prison and prohibited the development or possession of phishing kits with the intention of committing fraud. Companies have also joined

4368-605: The warez scene on their platform. In the 2000s, phishing attacks became more organized and targeted. The first known direct attempt against a payment system, E-gold , occurred in June 2001, and shortly after the September 11 attacks , a "post-9/11 id check" phishing attack followed. The first known phishing attack against a retail bank was reported in September 2003. Between May 2004 and May 2005, approximately 1.2 million computer users in

4480-472: The "deals", the transaction would not be completed, prompting the retailer's customers to input data that could be compromised and stolen. In 2018, the company block.one, which developed the EOS.IO blockchain, was attacked by a phishing group who sent phishing emails to all customers aimed at intercepting the user's cryptocurrency wallet key, and a later attack targeted airdrop tokens. Phishing attacks have evolved in

4592-595: The 1950s and 1960s, it supported the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and its leadership included several prominent civil rights activists – though it was sometimes critical of civil rights leaders for their anti-war activism , Freedom House awarded Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers its annual Freedom Award in 1963. It supported Andrei Sakharov , other Soviet dissidents, and

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4704-448: The 2020s to include elements of social engineering, as demonstrated by the July 15, 2020, Twitter breach. In this case, a 17-year-old hacker and accomplices set up a fake website resembling Twitter's internal VPN provider used by remote working employees. Posing as helpdesk staff, they called multiple Twitter employees, directing them to submit their credentials to the fake VPN website. Using

4816-612: The CIA and "submitted proof of the politically motivated, interventionist activities the NGO (Freedom House) carried out against their Government". They also claimed a lack of criticism of U.S. human rights violations in the annual reports. Cuba also stated that these violations are well documented by other reports, such as those of Human Rights Watch . Other countries such as China and Sudan also gave criticism. The Russian representative inquired "why this organization, an NGO which defended human rights,

4928-697: The Centralized Zone Data System; also gained was data about users in the system - and access to ICANN's public Governmental Advisory Committee wiki, blog, and whois information portal. Fancy Bear was linked to spear-phishing attacks against the Pentagon email system in August 2015, and the group used a zero-day exploit of Java in a spear-phishing attack on the White House and NATO. Fancy Bear carried out spear phishing attacks on email addresses associated with

5040-624: The Cold War" and having "become simply another progressive, anti-conservative (and overwhelmingly government-dependent) NGO". Another article criticized Freedom House for characterizing differences in policy as anti-democratic and for using what it regarded as partisan rather than objective measures of democracy. From the 1970s until 1990, Raymond Gastil practically produced the reports on his own, though sometimes with help from his wife. Gastil himself described it in 1990 as "a loose, intuitive rating system for levels of freedom or democracy, as defined by

5152-710: The Democratic National Committee in the first quarter of 2016. In August 2016, members of the Bundestag and political parties such as Linken -faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht , Junge Union , and the CDU of Saarland were targeted by spear-phishing attacks suspected to be carried out by Fancy Bear. In August 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency reported the receipt of phishing emails sent to users of its database claiming to be official WADA, but consistent with

5264-559: The DynaWeb URLs, a web page will be presented similar to the original, with most blocked websites as links. In addition, a user can type in any URL in the box on this page and DynaWeb will fetch the pages for him or her instantly. No software is needed, nor are any settings tweaked on a user's computer. Since the Chinese net police watch DynaWeb's portal websites closely and block them as soon as they identify them, DynaWeb must be dynamic. It has hundreds of mirror sites at any time, and each with

5376-676: The FH for Latin American countries. Freedom House is a nonprofit organization with approximately 300 staff members worldwide. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has field offices in about a dozen countries, including Ukraine , Hungary , Serbia , Jordan , Mexico , and also countries in Central Asia . Freedom House states that its board of trustees is composed of "business and labor leaders, former senior government officials, scholars, writers, and journalists". All board members are current residents of

5488-556: The Knight Foundation in 2006, found that FOP was the best in its class of Press Freedom Indicators. The Freedom on the Net reports provide analytical reports and numerical ratings regarding the state of Internet freedom for countries worldwide. The countries surveyed represent a sample with a broad range of geographical diversity and levels of economic development, as well as varying levels of political and media freedom. The surveys ask

5600-748: The Polity IV scale scored the United Arab Emirates at -8, Russia at +4, and the United States at +8. In May 2024, Russian authorities declared Freedom House an “ undesirable organization ”. Craig Murray , the British ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, wrote that the executive director of Freedom House told him in 2003 that the group decided to back off from its efforts to spotlight human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, because some Republican board members (in Murray's words) "expressed concern that Freedom House

5712-582: The Press index was an annual survey of media independence , published between 1980 and 2017. It assessed the degree of print, broadcast, and internet freedom throughout the world. It provided numerical rankings and rated each country's media as "Free", "Partly Free", or "Not Free". Individual country narratives examined the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influenced reporting, and economic factors that affected access to information. An independent review of press freedom studies, commissioned by

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5824-502: The QR code with their phone or device, they are redirected to a fake website designed to steal personal information, login credentials, or financial details. As QR codes become more widely used for things like payments, event check-ins, and product information, quishing is emerging as a significant concern for digital security. Users are advised to exercise caution when scanning unfamiliar QR codes and ensure they are from trusted sources, although

5936-695: The Russian Business Network based in St. Petersburg. Email scams posing as the Internal Revenue Service were also used to steal sensitive data from U.S. taxpayers. Social networking sites are a prime target of phishing, since the personal details in such sites can be used in identity theft ; In 2007, 3.6 million adults lost US$ 3.2 billion due to phishing attacks. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reported receiving 115,370 phishing email reports from consumers with US and China hosting more than 25% of

6048-652: The Russian hacking group Fancy Bear. In 2017, 76% of organizations experienced phishing attacks, with nearly half of the information security professionals surveyed reporting an increase from 2016. In the first half of 2017, businesses and residents of Qatar were hit with over 93,570 phishing events in a three-month span. In August 2017, customers of Amazon faced the Amazon Prime Day phishing attack, when hackers sent out seemingly legitimate deals to customers of Amazon. When Amazon's customers attempted to make purchases using

6160-582: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed the first lawsuit against a Californian teenager suspected of phishing by creating a webpage mimicking America Online and stealing credit card information. Other countries have followed this lead by tracing and arresting phishers. A phishing kingpin, Valdir Paulo de Almeida, was arrested in Brazil for leading one of the largest phishing crime rings , which in two years stole between US$ 18 million and US$ 37 million . UK authorities jailed two men in June 2005 for their role in

6272-507: The U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House. PAUCI then sent U.S. Government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of

6384-487: The U.S., "the same two parties speak in a commercially sponsored unison". A 2014 report by comparative politics researcher Nils D. Steiner found "strong and consistent evidence of a substantial bias in the FH ratings" before 1988, with bias being reflected by the relationships between the U.S. and the countries under investigation. He writes that after 1989 the findings were not as strong but still hinted at political bias. In 2017, Sarah Sunn Bush wrote that many critics found

6496-452: The UK's National Cyber Security Centre rates the risk as far lower than other types of lure. Phishing attacks often involve creating fake links that appear to be from a legitimate organization. These links may use misspelled URLs or subdomains to deceive the user. In the following example URL, http://www.yourbank.example.com/ , it can appear to the untrained eye as though the URL will take

6608-570: The United States suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately US$ 929 million . Phishing was recognized as a fully organized part of the black market, and specializations emerged on a global scale that provided phishing software for payment, which were assembled and implemented into phishing campaigns by organized gangs. The United Kingdom banking sector suffered from phishing attacks, with losses from web banking fraud almost doubling in 2005 compared to 2004. In 2006, almost half of phishing thefts were committed by groups operating through

6720-647: The United States. Past members of the organization's board of directors include Kenneth Adelman , Farooq Kathwari , Azar Nafisi , Mark Palmer , P. J. O'Rourke and Lawrence Lessig , Zbigniew Brzezinski , Jeane Kirkpatrick , Samuel Huntington , Mara Liasson , Otto Reich , Donald Rumsfeld , Whitney North Seymour , Paul Wolfowitz , Steve Forbes and Bayard Rustin . According to their 2022 financial statement and independent auditors' report, Freedom House reported $ 93,705,255 of total revenue: Freedom House's total expenses in 2022 were $ 85,530,680. [1] Since 1973, Freedom House publishes an annual report, Freedom in

6832-550: The Uzbek government ordered Freedom House to suspend operations in Uzbekistan. Resource and Information Centers managed by Freedom House in Tashkent , Namangan , and Samarkand offered access to materials and books on human rights, as well as technical equipment, such as computers, copiers and Internet access. The government warned that criminal proceedings could be brought against Uzbek staff members and visitors following recent amendments to

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6944-402: The World , which it seeks to assess the current state of civil liberties and political rights in 195 countries and 15 territories. The Freedom in the World report is composed of numerical ratings based on external analysts and using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and

7056-439: The attacker to observe everything while the victim navigates the site, and transverses any additional security boundaries with the victim. As of 2020, it is the most common type of cybercrime , with the FBI 's Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting more incidents of phishing than any other type of cybercrime. The term "phishing" was first recorded in 1995 in the cracking toolkit AOHell , but may have been used earlier in

7168-530: The blocking efforts on the China side of the Great Firewall of China (GFW). DIT also releases a tiny piece of software, FreeGate, which directly taps into DynaWeb's backbone and keeps a user connected to the dynamic channels automatically. Today DynaWeb offers the widest range of options for users to access Internet freely, and supports more than 50 million web hits per day on average from Chinese users alone. DIT

7280-505: The chances of success. These attacks often target executives or those in financial departments with access to sensitive financial data and services. Accountancy and audit firms are particularly vulnerable to spear phishing due to the value of the information their employees have access to. The Russian government-run Threat Group-4127 (Fancy Bear) (GRU Unit 26165) targeted Hillary Clinton 's 2016 presidential campaign with spear phishing attacks on over 1,800  Google accounts, using

7392-534: The concrete application of the principles of freedom. Freedom House had physical form in a New York City building that represented the organization's goals. A converted residence at 32 East 51st Street opened January 22, 1942, as a centre "where all who love liberty may meet, plan their programs and encourage one another". Furnished as a gift of the Allies , the 19-room building included a broadcasting facility. In January 1944, Freedom House moved to 5 West 54th Street ,

7504-802: The countries." They estimated that Gastil's method produced a bias of 0.38  standard deviations (s.d.) against Communist countries and a larger bias, 0.5 s.d., favoring Christian countries. In 2001, a study by Mainwaring, Brink, and Perez-Linanhe found the Freedom Index of Freedom in the World to have a strong positive correlation (at least 80%) with three other democracy indices. Mainwaring et al. wrote that Freedom House's index had "two systematic biases: scores for leftist were tainted by political considerations, and changes in scores are sometimes driven by changes in their criteria rather than changes in real conditions". Nonetheless, when evaluated on Latin American countries yearly, Freedom House's index

7616-574: The criminal code and Code on Administrative Liability of Uzbekistan. Other human rights groups have been similarly threatened and obliged to suspend operations. Freedom House is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange , a global network of more than 80 non-governmental organizations that monitors free expression violations around the world and defends journalists, writers and others who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Freedom House also publishes

7728-509: The details supplied by the unsuspecting employees, they were able to seize control of several high-profile user accounts, including those of Barack Obama , Elon Musk , Joe Biden , and Apple Inc. 's company account. The hackers then sent messages to Twitter followers soliciting Bitcoin , promising to double the transaction value in return. The hackers collected 12.86 BTC (about $ 117,000 at the time). There are anti-phishing websites which publish exact messages that have been recently circulating

7840-427: The direction of distortions, it is highly likely that every set of indicators formed by a single author or organization contains systematic measurement error. The origin of this measure lies in the common methodology of forming measures. Selectivity of information and various traits of the judges fuse into a distinct form of bias that is likely to characterize all indicators from a common publication." The Freedom of

7952-568: The effort to crack down on phishing. On March 31, 2005, Microsoft filed 117 federal lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington . The lawsuits accuse " John Doe " defendants of obtaining passwords and confidential information. March 2005 also saw a partnership between Microsoft and the Australian government teaching law enforcement officials how to combat various cyber crimes, including phishing. Microsoft announced

8064-601: The first and last digits. A study on phishing attacks in game environments found that educational games can effectively educate players against information disclosures and can increase awareness on phishing risk thus mitigating risks. The Anti-Phishing Working Group , one of the largest anti-phishing organizations in the world, produces regular report on trends in phishing attacks. A wide range of technical approaches are available to prevent phishing attacks reaching users or to prevent them from successfully capturing sensitive information. Specialized spam filters can reduce

8176-538: The first defendant convicted by a jury under the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 . He was found guilty of sending thousands of emails to AOL users, while posing as the company's billing department, which prompted customers to submit personal and credit card information. Facing a possible 101 years in prison for the CAN-SPAM violation and ten other counts including wire fraud , the unauthorized use of credit cards, and

8288-419: The group of serving U.S. interests. Sergei Markov , an MP from the ruling United Russia party, called Freedom House a "Russophobic" organization, commenting: "You can listen to everything they say, except when it comes to Russia ... There are many Russophobes there." Christopher Walker, director of studies at Freedom House, posited that Freedom House made its evaluations based on objective criteria explained on

8400-693: The hacker magazine 2600 . It is a variation of fishing and refers to the use of lures to "fish" for sensitive information. Measures to prevent or reduce the impact of phishing attacks include legislation , user education, public awareness, and technical security measures. The importance of phishing awareness has increased in both personal and professional settings, with phishing attacks among businesses rising from 72% in 2017 to 86% in 2020. Phishing attacks, often delivered via email spam , attempt to trick individuals into giving away sensitive information or login credentials. Most attacks are "bulk attacks" that are not targeted and are instead sent in bulk to

8512-405: The informal but real power relations and pathways of influence ... and frequently lead to de facto deviations from democracy." States can therefore "look formally liberal-democratic but might be rather illiberal in their actual workings" In the 2010s, a number of American conservative institutions have criticized Freedom House for what they see as an anti-conservative shift in the organization;

8624-695: The internet, such as FraudWatch International and Millersmiles. Such sites often provide specific details about the particular messages. As recently as 2007, the adoption of anti-phishing strategies by businesses needing to protect personal and financial information was low. There are several different techniques to combat phishing, including legislation and technology created specifically to protect against phishing. These techniques include steps that can be taken by individuals, as well as by organizations. Phone, web site, and email phishing can now be reported to authorities, as described below . Effective phishing education, including conceptual knowledge and feedback,

8736-497: The limited display of URLs in mobile browsers. Smishing can be just as effective as email phishing, as many smartphones have fast internet connectivity. Smishing messages may also come from unusual phone numbers. Page hijacking involves redirecting users to malicious websites or exploit kits through the compromise of legitimate web pages, often using cross site scripting . Hackers may insert exploit kits such as MPack into compromised websites to exploit legitimate users visiting

8848-402: The login form as a visual cue that the form is legitimate. Unlike the website-based image schemes, however, the image itself is shared only between the user and the browser, and not between the user and the website. The scheme also relies on a mutual authentication protocol, which makes it less vulnerable to attacks that affect user-only authentication schemes. Still another technique relies on

8960-406: The number of phishing emails that reach their addressees' inboxes. These filters use a number of techniques including machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify phishing emails, and reject email with forged addresses. Another popular approach to fighting phishing is to maintain a list of known phishing sites and to check websites against the list. One such service

9072-469: The organization has been criticized as being biased against conservative governments and the policies they enact, and has also been accused of favoring progressive and left-wing ideas in its ranking system. It has also been criticized for a perceived shift to an activist mindset; a 2018 article in the National Review described it as having "changed dramatically since its anti-Communist days during

9184-464: The organization's funding comes from the U.S. State Department and other government grants. It also receives funds from various semi-public and private foundations, as well as individual contributions. The organization's annual Freedom in the World report assesses each country's degree of political freedoms and civil liberties. Another key annual report, Freedom on the Net , is Freedom House's annual survey and analysis of internet freedom around

9296-403: The organization's website, and denied that it had a pro-U.S. agenda, saying: "If you look closely at the 193 countries that we evaluate, you'll find that we criticize what are often considered strategic allies of the United States." UCLA political scientist Daniel Treisman has criticized Freedom House's assessment of Russia. Treisman cited that Freedom House ranks Russia's political rights on

9408-553: The original pre-1990 methodology lacking. While this improved after a team was hired in 1990, she says some criticism remains. As for why the Freedom House index is most often quoted in the United States, she notes that its definition of democracy is closely aligned with US foreign policy. US-allied countries tend to get better scores than in other reports. However, because the report is important to US lawmakers and politicians, weaker states seeking US aid or favor are forced to respond to

9520-512: The phishing pages each in the third quarter of 2009. Phishing in the 2010s saw a significant increase in the number of attacks. In 2011, the master keys for RSA SecurID security tokens were stolen through a phishing attack. Chinese phishing campaigns also targeted high-ranking officials in the US and South Korean governments and military, as well as Chinese political activists. According to Ghosh, phishing attacks increased from 187,203 in 2010 to 445,004 in 2012. In August 2013, Outbrain suffered

9632-440: The problem of phishing sites impersonating a victim site by embedding its images (such as logos ), several site owners have altered the images to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead send a warning image. The Bank of America website

9744-401: The public and transparent work of other organisations, and will backfire inside Iran." On December 7, 2004, former U.S. House Representative and Libertarian politician Ron Paul criticized Freedom House for allegedly administering a U.S.-funded program in Ukraine where "much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate." Paul said "one part that we do know thus far is that

9856-553: The public's lower awareness and trust in voice telephony compared to email phishing. SMS phishing or smishing is a type of phishing attack that uses text messages from a cell phone or smartphone to deliver a bait message. The victim is usually asked to click a link, call a phone number, or contact an email address provided by the attacker. They may then be asked to provide private information , such as login credentials for other websites. The difficulty in identifying illegitimate links can be compounded on mobile devices due to

9968-489: The rankings were criticized by National Review , a conservative newspaper, for its perceptions of the NGO being "anti-conservative". Freedom House was incorporated October 31, 1941. Among its founders were Eleanor Roosevelt , Wendell Willkie , Mayor Fiorello La Guardia , Elizabeth Cutter Morrow , Dorothy Thompson , George Field, Herbert Agar , Herbert Bayard Swope , Ralph Bunche , Father George B. Ford, Roscoe Drummond and Rex Stout . George Field (1904–2006)

10080-426: The reports, giving the Freedom House significant influence in those places. Phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses , worms , adware , or ransomware . Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing

10192-525: The same level as the United Arab Emirates , which is a federation of absolute monarchies with no element of democracy within the system. Freedom House also ranks Russia's civil liberties on the same scale as those of Yemen , where criticism of the president was illegal. Treisman contrasts Freedom House's ranking with the Polity IV scale used by academics, in which Russia has a much better score. In 2018,

10304-454: The server. Page hijacking can also involve the insertion of malicious inline frames , allowing exploit kits to load. This tactic is often used in conjunction with watering hole attacks on corporate targets. A relatively new trend in online scam activity is "Quishing". The term is derived from "QR" ( Quick Response ) codes and "phishing", as scammers exploit the convenience of QR codes to trick users into giving up sensitive data, by scanning

10416-757: The status bar when the mouse is hovering over it. However, some phishers may be able to bypass this security measure. Internationalized domain names (IDNs) can be exploited via IDN spoofing or homograph attacks to allow attackers to create fake websites with visually identical addresses to legitimate ones. These attacks have been used by phishers to disguise malicious URLs using open URL redirectors on trusted websites. Even digital certificates, such as SSL , may not protect against these attacks as phishers can purchase valid certificates and alter content to mimic genuine websites or host phishing sites without SSL. Phishing often uses social engineering techniques to trick users into performing actions such as clicking

10528-560: The struggle against the other twentieth century totalitarian threat, Communism ... The organization's leadership was convinced that the spread of democracy would be the best weapon against totalitarian ideologies." Freedom House supported the Marshall Plan and the establishment of NATO . Freedom House also supported the Johnson Administration's Vietnam War policies. Freedom House was highly critical of McCarthyism . During

10640-706: The suppression of the Prague Spring, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, and the brutal violation of human rights in Cuba, Burma, the People's Republic of China, and Iraq. It has championed the rights of democratic activists, religious believers, trade unionists, journalists, and proponents of free markets. In 1967, Freedom House absorbed Books USA, which had been created several years earlier by Edward R. Murrow , as

10752-436: The totals. Freedom House has produced more than 85 special reports since 2002, including: In addition to these reports, Freedom House participates in advocacy initiatives, and global democracy and human rights programming. In its international offices, it promotes and assists local human rights workers and non-government organizations. On January 12, 2006, as part of a crackdown on unauthorized nongovernmental organizations,

10864-506: The traditional political rights and civil liberties of the Western democracies." Regarding criticisms of his reports, he said: "generally such criticism is based on opinions about Freedom House rather than detailed examination of survey ratings". In a 1986 report on the methodology used by Gastil and others to create Freedom in the World report, Kenneth A. Bollen noted some bias but found that "no criticisms of which I am aware have demonstrated

10976-616: The tunnel link because it doesn't use SSL security so users' information is not encrypted. https://forums.internetfreedom.org/index.php?board=2.0 Freedom House Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy , political freedom , and human rights . Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons. Most of

11088-401: The user to the example section of the yourbank website; this URL points to the " yourbank " (i.e. phishing subdomain) section of the example website (fraudster's domain name). Another tactic is to make the displayed text for a link appear trustworthy, while the actual link goes to the phisher's site. To check the destination of a link, many email clients and web browsers will show the URL in

11200-610: The victim. Early phishing techniques can be traced back to the 1990s, when black hat hackers and the warez community used AOL to steal credit card information and commit other online crimes. The term "phishing" is said to have been coined by Khan C. Smith, a well-known spammer and hacker, and its first recorded mention was found in the hacking tool AOHell , which was released in 1994. AOHell allowed hackers to impersonate AOL staff and send instant messages to victims asking them to reveal their passwords. In response, AOL implemented measures to prevent phishing and eventually shut down

11312-434: The visited URLs to a central service to be checked, which has raised concerns about privacy . According to a report by Mozilla in late 2006, Firefox 2 was found to be more effective than Internet Explorer 7 at detecting fraudulent sites in a study by an independent software testing company. An approach introduced in mid-2006 involves switching to a special DNS service that filters out known phishing domains. To mitigate

11424-493: The week. The series was produced by Paul White , founder of CBS News . By November 1944, Freedom House was planning to raise money to acquire a building to be named after the recently deceased Wendell L. Willkie. In 1945 an elegant building at 20 West 40th Street was purchased to house the organization. It was named the Willkie Memorial Building. After the war, as its website states, "Freedom House took up

11536-422: The world. While often cited by political scientists, journalists, and policymakers, the organization's democracy indices have received criticism. Between the 1970s and 2000s, critics predominately alleged that the organization was biased towards American interests due to government funding; others criticized the organization's reliance on democratic indices created near-exclusively by Raymond Gastil . In 2018,

11648-630: Was against the creation of the International Criminal Court ?" The U.S. representative stated that alleged links between Freedom House and the CIA were "simply not true". The representative said he agreed that the NGO receives funds from the United States Government, but said this is disclosed in its reports. The representative said the funds were from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which

11760-533: Was executive director of the organization until his retirement in 1967. According to its website, Freedom House was founded in 1941. Several groups were aggressively supporting U.S. entry into World War II and in early autumn 1941, when various group activities began to overlap, the Fight for Freedom Committee began exploring a mass merger. George Field then conceived the idea of all of the groups maintaining their separate identities under one roof—Freedom House—to promote

11872-447: Was failing to keep in sight the need to promote freedom in the widest sense, by giving full support to U.S. and coalition forces". Human rights abuses in Uzbekistan at the time included the killing of prisoners by "immersion in boiling liquid", and by strapping on a gas mask and blocking the filters, Murray reported. Jennifer Windsor, the executive director of Freedom House in 2003, replied that Murray's "characterization of our conversation

11984-604: Was founded in 2001 to provide email delivery services to China for US government agencies and NGOs . In 2002, DIT started to provide anti-censorship services under the framework of DynaWeb, and like UltraSurf , DynaWeb became a top contender of the GFW-penetration effort. Freegate was created by Falun Gong practitioners and has been financed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors , a US governmental agency. Freegate also receives funding from Human Rights in China , which

12096-466: Was not a branch of the CIA. The representative said his country had a law prohibiting the government from engaging in the activities of organizations seeking to change public policy, such as Freedom House. The representative said his country was not immune from criticism from Freedom House, which he said was well documented. The U.S. representative further argued that Freedom House was a human rights organization which sought to represent those who did not have

12208-512: Was one of several that asked users to select a personal image (marketed as SiteKey ) and displayed this user-selected image with any forms that request a password. Users of the bank's online services were instructed to enter a password only when they saw the image they selected. The bank has since discontinued the use of SiteKey. Several studies suggest that few users refrain from entering their passwords when images are absent. In addition, this feature (like other forms of two-factor authentication )

12320-457: Was positively correlated with the index of Adam Przeworski and with the index of the authors themselves. However, according to Przeworski in 2003, the definition of freedom in Gastil (1982) and Freedom House (1990) emphasized liberties rather than the exercise of freedom. He gave the following example: In the United States, citizens are free to form political parties and to vote, yet even in presidential elections only half of U.S. citizens vote; in

12432-467: Was reported that "pro-government electronic actors" in Syria sent electronic messages to rebels encouraging them to download a file named Freegate which was claimed to be designed to help dissidents circumvent state surveillance agencies, but actually it was a malware and the intruder was able to monitor what the victims were typing on their computers and read or remove the files. In August 2013 while Freegate

12544-446: Was testing a new proxy program, some people thought it was a phishing attack. Reports from Iran said the users who used Freegate to pass Internet censorship in Iran , were led to a fake page instead of Facebook 's main website. Freegate published a note saying they were testing a new proxy program, and the fake Facebook page was a tunnel. Although IT experts warned users to be careful with

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