Symantec sees threat to presidential campaigns

A team of Symantec Corp. security researchers presented ways phishers and cybersquatters are using the presidential election to make money.

Oliver Friedrichs, director of emerging technologies in Symantec Security Response, presented a two-month long study of cybersquatting and phishing affects on the presidential campaigns at the Black Hat briefings in Las Vegas. The analysis was conducted in July and August of 2007.

First, presidential candidates bowing out of the race are doing a poor job cleaning up their websites when they drop out. For example, Delaware Senator Joe Biden’s website continued to provide a form for online donations, yet a message said the merchant payment account has been disabled. Other presidential contenders abandoned their websites altogether.

Friedrichs also gave examples of spoofed websites and said the cybersquatters presented a risk to candidates because they could host malicious files and even redirect email traffic or intercept email. Called email squatting, Friedrichs said the technique involves redirecting mail exchange records.

Here’s a link to Symantec’s Black Hat slides.