Phishing : Example and Prevention (Week 4)

Phishing is a THEFT. Phishing (pronounced “Fishing”) is an online fraud technique used by criminals to entice you to disclose your personal information. Phishing is the fastest rising online crime method used for stealing personal finances and perpetrating identity theft. There are 2 types of phishing. There are phishing attack and spear phishing attack. Phishers use many different tactics to lure you, including e-mail and Web sites that mimic well-known, trusted brands. A common phishing practice involves "spamming" recipients with fake messages that resemble a valid message from a well-known Web site or a company that the recipients might trust, such as a credit card company, bank, charity, or e-commerce online shopping site. The purpose of fake messages is to trick consumers into providing the following personal information. There are names and username, password, bank account numbers, ATM/debit or credit card number and others information.

Paypal and Citibank had fake by the phishers to request the personal information. Phishers are targeting the customers of banks and online payment services. Recently, most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a link in an e-mail (and the spoofed website it leads to) appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Phishing always attempts to create a sense of urgency so that victims immediately respond without thinking. It is the way of phishing to increase the number of responses in order to acquire from their personal information.

There are few prevention methods.

First, use the strong passwords and change them often like strong passwords combine uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, which make them difficult for other people to guess.

Secondly, never reply to e-mail messages that request your personal information and never volunteer any personal information to someone who places an unsolicited call to you. In addition, don't click a link contained in a suspicious message because the link might not be trustworthy. It can eliminate the phishers obtain the financial information against the victims.

Lastly, it is important to use a firewall, keep your computer updated, and use antivirus software to help protect your PC.