Phishing is somewhat like fishing. The way you do it is almost the same but the tools you use are different. Phishing is an e-mail scam. The phishers puts the bait to fool and lure innocent prey and steal their identity before they know it. Victims will receive justifiable-looking emails which look as if they are from valid company websites.
These emails will take them to a phony scam site and requires them to login to their account and key in some private details of their own like bank PIN number, credit card number, passwords, account data, other personal information and etc. Or, it can also be a pop-up window which looks exactly like the official website.
With the information, the perpetrator will then conduct bank and credit card fraud. This is the most outraging daylight robbery of identity of the new century. Websites that is often spoofed or mocked by phishers are eBay, MSN, Yahoo, America Online (AOL) and PayPal.
The following are the examples of phishing scams.
eBay E-mail
According to the email (as shown above), a slight billing error have occurred due to the reasons given. As such, the victim was told to login and verify the transactions. The logo of eBay used here is a real one. However, this is easy because such logos can be obtained from the real site without any hassles. It is also one of the ordinary approached employed to lure the victim.Citibank Scam
The warning letter instructed the customer to renew his records by keying in some sensitive financial data so that the company could secure and protect the safety and the integrity of the customer. Little did the customer know if he or she ever adheres to such instructions, it will be the end of the safety and the integrity of his/ her account as mentioned.
Here is how and what you should do in preventing yourself getting phished.
There was this Chinese saying that goes like: if you know yourself and your enemy well, you are sure to win the game.
Phishers normally wants their victims to react on the double; otherwise, their tricks will fail. So, they will include some exciting or warning signs to spark your alarm. For example, they can deceptively claim that there is some error in processing some transactions in your account or some unusual withdrawals have been made, thus you are required to logon to a scam site in order to verify it. They can also make a deceptive claim saying that you were chosen to be the winner of a lottery ticket and thus you have to enter some personal information before you can receive your mysterious gift.
If this is so, users should check and report the incident to the actual financial institution or company that is supposed to have sent you the mail. Confirm the incident with them before submitting yourself to the scam. This could help the banks and companies to take actions against preventing fraud too.
2. Be wary of impersonal emails.
Most of the time, perpetrators attack millions through spam mails; which means to say, a phish mail is by large, impersonal and general. This is in contradictory to true emails from financial institutions as they are mostly personal in nature.
3. Never give away your personal financial information by filling up forms that comes in emails.
A predictable phishing scam normally requires victims to enter their personal information like usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, bank account PIN number , Identity Card number (for the Malaysian context) via an online form. This is quite the opposite of a true valid financial institution. Because a bank would normally have good control over customers’ account and will not ask for such information. Otherwise, my advice to you is better transferring your money to another safer and more responsible bank.
Log on to http://www.anti-phishing.info/avoid-phishing.html for more tips in preventing getting phished.
So, the moral of the story is: be extra careful in giving away your personal information. Report such scams if you ever come across one. You never know, you could make an impact in someone else’s life! =)
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