pharming

Pharming is a spoofing technique that is used with the intention to defraud. Like DNS spoofing or IP spoofing, the user is led to a fake website by a spoofed IP address and ends up on a cybercriminal's server.

Pharming uses address conversion from the domain address, for example www.itwissen.info, to the dotted decimal notation of the IP address with dotted notation 213.133.101.238, which is managed in the Domain NameSystem (DNS). For this purpose, pharming "poisons" the entries in the DNS server with fake responses. This is why it is also referred to as DNS cache poisoning. When requests are made to the DNS server, the server supplies the requestor with the falsified IP address. As the requester enters the domain name, he is directed to the attacker's fake website via the spoofed IP address.

Pharming, like phishing, is used in online banking to retrieve confidential data for financial transactions. In pharming, customers land on the fake websites despite entering the correct domain names and disclose confidential data such as the account number, personal identification number( PIN) and transaction number( TAN), which are then misused.

The use of security certificates is one way to prevent this misuse.