|
Phishing
is a common and dangerous form of internet fraud in which
spammers use social engineering (the practice of obtaining
information about people by imitating legitimate organizations)
in order to extract highly sensitive information from
people, including their bank account, social security
number or password.
It
is quite easy to fall for phishing, since the e-mails
use the exact design of the recipient's bank or Paypal.
This resemblance gives the recipient a false feeling of
trust and too often, people give their information to
a spammer.
The
results of this are disastrous; once someone has a password
or a bank account number, they can easily manipulate the
finances of a victim. Identity theft is also common among
victims of phishing. Since so many people can be lured
into this scam and the results are so devastating, it
is essential that all internet users have an awareness
of phishing.
The
term "phishing" is a deliberate misspelling
of the word "fishing" , imitating the way in
which spammers often deliberately misspell words in order
to make it past spam filters. The phishers are fishing
for personal information, and the "bait" is
the resemblance of a trusted site, such as that of a bank
or paypal.
Phishing
has become such a difficult problem, that Paypal, Ebay
and other trustworthy organizations who are often exploited
in phishing scams warn all new clients that no agent of
theirs would ever ask for personal information. This is
an important fact always to keep in mind, since many recipients
of these scams might panic for a minute or be lured into
a false sense of security, believing the mail is from
a paypal or bank representative.
Phishers
often manipulate recipients by threatening that their
account will be closed if they do not supply needed information.
This causes people to jump to type in the needed information.
Other phishers will say that they have a receipt for an
unauthorized purchase.
This leads the recipient to want to click the link as
soon as possible to solve the problem. If you suspect
that an e-mail saying that your account will be closed
is legitimate, never click on a link sent to you by e-mail,
but visit the site yourself. After a few times, you will
learn to recognize phishers, unfortunately, because their
e-mails show up so often.
People
wonder what to do about phishing, since it is such a common
problem. Ebay, Paypal, and Banks encourage customers to
complain about phishing, and many phishees do this initially.
But sooner or later, one's inbox of bulk mail is overwhelmed
with phishy e-mails, and it seems impossible to report
them all.
This
is an intentional device used by phishers to try to wear
the phishee down so that he or she no longer can complain
about phishing. The fact that few feel that they complain
is a problem that leads to more phishing.
It
is best to complain about phishing as often as possible,
because if people accept phishing as a fact of life, it
will only increase. Therefore, whenever you have an opportunity,
report phishing to your trusted site.
|
