Phishing
The term "phishing" is used as in "fishing" for passwords, personal and financial information.
Phishing is a scam using email (spam) and websites, designed to look like legitimate, trusted institutions and companies. They then use social engineering to entice you to divulge your personal information, such as credit card numbers, bank account information and passwords. This information is then used for criminal purposes, such as identity theft.
Phishing uses spoofed (fake) email addresses and headers, to throw off any back tracing to the original source.
Some phishing emails contain grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, which make them easy to detect. However, there are those that use stolen graphics off the website they are supposedly portraying. They also fake websites to look like the original site.
Another thing to look for in phishing spam, is that a link may appear to be legitimate, where in fact it points to a totally different website (that of the attacker).
Phishers play on the emotions of victims by falsely stating that there is a threat to their credit card or bank account. By doing so, users are inclined to click on the link supplied in the email.
Users are advised to always be on the alert. When in doubt, follow these simple rules:
- Do not click on the link.
- Do not provide any personal information.
- Follow up with the institution to check the legitimacy of the email, by email or phone.
- Never give out any passwords.
- Always look for the "lock" icon in the bottom right of your browser.
- Be careful of what you download from the Internet.
If you provide any personal information, you may find yourself a victim of identity theft.
Other communication channels used of late is IRC, P2P and instant messaging.
Important to note is that some Trojans are delivered via phishing emails or malicious websites. These Trojans install keyloggers onto unsuspecting users PC's. A Keylogger is software designed to log every key stroke on a user's PC.
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