Reporting a phishing site, is it worth it?

So I thought I was being a good internet citizen when I received the following email a week ago:

Dear User;

Please update to our new server click here to begin

http://glacierdesign.ca/phpform/forms/form1.html

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

Webmaster

The site looked like this:

Screenshot of a phishing website

For a while I was confused, after all I run my own email. Did I really need to remind myself of my password? And what had happened to my unlimited quota?

Then I figured it was obviously a phishing email, so I turned to “do no evil” Google to report it. If the site was included on their block list then users of popular browsers would automatically receive a warning if they tried to go to it.

I tried using the Google report phishing form, even filling in the headers and body of the email in the comments box. Unfortunately, a week later the site is still up and presumably conning less savvy users.

Surprised by Google I’ve just tried the badwarebusters.org report feature, let’s hope it works slightly more efficiently!

David Cannings
David Cannings
Cyber Security

My interests include computer security, digital electronics and writing tools to help analysis of cyber attacks.