What is Phishing ? Protecting Your Online Accounts
What is
Phishing ? Be aware; learn how to recognize phishing online
scams and other fraudulent Emails.
Protecting online
accounts from online scams
How to deal with suspicious emails
What can you do if you think you may have been taken in by a
phishing Scam
What is phishing ?
Phishing has been around for a while now, if you use internet
banking they will no doubt be very concerned by this.
Phishing is a form of
deceit to get personal details from you such as bank details,
credit card numbers, basically any valuable information that can
be used to steal your hard earned money from you.
scam artists send literally millions of fraudulent emails which
on the surface appear to come from perfectly normal Web sites
you trust, like your bank, auction website or credit card
company requesting personal information from you.
They usually look
very official with logos taken from real companies.
These scam emails
usually have one or two links within them that appear to go to
the real website, but of course the links only take you to a
false site.
Once on the site if
you enter your details it may only take a matter of minutes
before a thief begins trying to use the information they have
just gained.
There are a number
of ways to spot a fraudulent email
Firstly any reputable
bank, credit card company or the like will never ask you for
personal information in an email, email generally is not secure
so any sensitive information should never be sent in an email in
any case.
The email will
contain an action statement, something similar to
Your account will be closed down in 48 hours
We have noticed some fraudulent activity on your account.
Click below to gain access to your account
Any links in the
email may look ok, but the web address you see may not be the
actual web address
By hovering the
cursor over the link the real web address will be revealed.
Even if the address
looks real look at it closely, as criminals can use addresses
that are very close to the original for example
www.computer-adviser.com Is our real address, but a scam artist
may use www.computer-advizer.com Or www.c0mputer-adviser.com
By simply changing a character or 2 the addresses still look ok
until we have a good look.
Summary
Be aware protecting online accounts, never open valuable data
websites from an email.
Use software such as Microsoft's phishing filter which comes
bundled with internet explorer 8.
Keep all software up
to date, this includes Microsoft system patches, antivirus and
spyware protection.
If the worst
happens
If you think you may have fallen prey to one of these scams and
passed on personal information, Call your bank or card issuer
asap
Change any passwords asap
Time really is of the essence here.
What is phishing , make sure your computer
is protected
computer adviser
what is phishing article |