Phishing: Examples and Its Prevention Methods

Phishing

Examples and Its Prevention Methods

Phishing is a scam in which the attacker sends an email purporting to be from a valid financial or eCommerce provider. Identity thieves and other criminals often use "phishing" scams, one of the fastest growing internet crimes, to steal personal information from a vast number of people. Phishing attacks use 'spoofed' e-mails and fraudulent websites designed to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, social security numbers.

The following are examples of what a phishing scam e-mail message might look like:

How to Prevent ?
There are some ways to help us to prevent phishing scam. Firstly, never click on the links in email messages. It can be extremely difficult to identify which are legitimate and which are spoofed. Go directly to the website of your financial institution and log in as usual. If there is a need to update some information, you will be informed when you log in.

Secondly, review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorized charges. If our credit cards are being used by other people, we will see the amount in the bank statement.

Thirdly, we should always be skeptical. Most legitimate companies do not send requests to update our information. Those that make these requests are finding that most people are suspicious and ignore the request.

Fourthly, use anti-virus software and a firewall, and keep them up to date. Besides that, don’t email personal or financial information. This is because; other people can hack our email and take information from there.

Finally, in order to avoid this e-mail to ever land in your inbox you need to use a phishing filter. One of the most common ones at the moment is the Bayesian Filter that allows you to blacklist or white list certain individuals. It also easily integrates to popular email clients such as MS outlook.