Patent ID: 7854001

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for reducing phishing attacks that employ malicious websites, comprising: gathering information about potentially malicious websites from a plurality of sources, wherein said gathering information includes: obtaining URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) for said potentially malicious websites, and transforming fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) of said potentially malicious websites into resolved IP addresses; reducing the number of potentially malicious websites gathered, thereby creating a malicious website database that tracks at least a subset of said potentially malicious websites; generating a malicious website blacklist from said malicious website database, each website in said malicious website blacklist satisfying inclusion criteria, wherein said malicious website blacklist is employed to decide whether an access request to a given website is permitted; analyzing said malicious website blacklist for malicious websites that are associated with the same subnet; and if the number of malicious websites that are associated with a given subnet exceeds a predefined threshold number, designating all websites associated with said given subnet for access blocking.