What Is Phishing and How To Avoid It

Written by OSAblog on Monday, June 15th, 2009

Phishing is a criminally fraudulent process made in attempt to scam an Internet user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. It is usually made through email. Phishing is a lucrative computer crime which is growing rapidly in the last few years. The best way to protect against phishing is to know how to recognize it.

How Does Phishing Work?

Phishing is usually made by email or IM. You will receive a message that may appear to be from a friend, a business, a government agency or some other legitimate entity. For example, a lot of phishing messages appear to be from credit card companies or banks. Some appear to be from major online retailers, such as, Amazon, ebay and PayPal. Some will be from organizations or companies you have never dealt with before so they will be easier for you to detect.

A phishing message may state that the company or organization it has been sent from has data problems and your private information needs verification. The message usually has a link that you are supposed to click on in order to validate your private information. When you click on that link you will be directed to a fake website that resembles the original website that the phishing message pretends to be from. Phishers will do anything in order to convince you that you are in a legitimate website. They will have a similar URL as the original website and the appearance of the fake website will be identical to the original one. You will be asked to enter your personal details, most likley in a popup window. These details may include your credit card number and password, your account details and password etc. When you enter your personal information phishers will harvest your data and exploit it. They may drain your account immediately or sell your personal information to someone else. A phishing message could also have an attachment that when clicked on infects your PC with malware.

How to Detect a Phishing Message

Most important is to remember that legitimate businesses should not ask for personal details via email or by popup window. If you encounter such an email or IM then it is probably a phishing message.
If an email asks you to “verify your information” or “confirm your user and password” then it is probably a phishing message.
If an email states consequences that will occur if you do not verify your details then it is probably a phishing message.

Avoid Becoming a Victim

When getting a phishing email, do not click on the link or the attachments that appear in the message and delete it immediately. If you are not sure that it is a phishing message open a new browser page and enter the URL of the legitimate business manually. Be aware that your PC may be infected by malware that can take over your browser requests and whenever you ask for your bank website or credit card company website it will direct your browser to a fake website in order to steal your personal information. The best precaution when getting a suspicious email is to obtain the support or customer service departments details of the legitimate business that presumably sent you the message (not by using the email or the Internet) and contact them in order to validate authenticity.

For more information on how to protect your PC and personal information go to – In3Go – Resource for Internet Security Information

Sara Moses is a systems analyst consultant with ten years of experience in the field of Information systems. For more information on Internet Security and how to protect your family on the web go to -
In3Go – Resource for Internet Security Information.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/what-is-phishing-and-how-to-avoid-it-970848.html

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