The Pharming Menace and How to Secure Your Devices

Uncovering how the scam works and the strategies you can use to protect yourself

Photo by Yan Krukov on Pexels

What is pharming?

The word pharming is used today in two completely different contexts.

• For genetic engineers, the term has nothing to do with computers or cyberspace. It is simply a merger of “pharmaceutical” and “farming” and refers to the insertion of extraneous genes into plants or animals. The plant or animal is thereby genetically modified for use in generating pharmaceutical products. While the subject may interest some, it is not the scope of what we are covering.
• For computer users, the term “pharming” is a combination of the words phishing and farming. It has been coined to define the process by which cyber-criminals exploit a computer’s vulnerability using malicious code to redirect traffic from an IP address to whichever site they want the victim to visit.

In the latter case, the computer is infected to such a degree that the victim is automatically directed to a fake website when they type in a particular URL on his address bar. They are none the wiser as to the difference between the genuine site and the counterfeit one.