Phishing...Fishing...??

Hi, it's blogging time again ^^ Are you familiar with the word "Phishing"?? It's not "Fishing", an activity that you sit by the river bank and wait for the fishes to eat your bait. But, it has a similar meaning. It is a technique used to steal your valuable personal data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data. using fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from legitimate businesses.

Phishing is the biggest and might be the most common threats that an online might have experienced nowadays. Phishing can in form of electronically, commonly through e-mail or instant message, or through voice phone calls, text messages, and other electronic communication methods. Here are some samples of phishing e-mail.

These mails are sent to targeted users under well known or trusted websites such as PayPal, eBay and banks. Some e-mails' contain information that threatening the users that their account would be suspended or terminated if they do not re-enter their information. Some users might started to worry and followed the instructions to re-enter their information. Once users responded to the those e-mails, users' sensitive information such as credit card numbers, bank account data, passwords will be stolen. Users may not only just leak out their personal information but also suffered from financial losses.

As there are lots of phishing e-mails on the internet, preventions should be taken by the internet users to keep track from the scam. Online users should be smart and be suspicious of any e-mail with urgent requests for personal financial information. We should not use the links in an e-mail or instant message if they suspect the message is a phishing scam. Instead of using the link provided if we suspect that the message if we do not know the sender or user, we might log on to the company's website by typing in the web address directly in our browser or directly call up. We should also avoid to fill out forms in e-mail that ask for personal financial information. Regularly check on the bank, credit and debit card statements to make sure there is no suspicious or unrecognized transaction is carried out.

Education may play a role in preventing ourselves to fall into those phishing scams. If we are educated with the knowledge to detect a phishing mail or website and how to securely access website, a lot of phishing attacks will not succeed. There are lots of information online which teach users how to identify phishing mail and site. A lot of companies and anti-phishing organizations also provide security tips and advises on preventing phishing scams. The most common way to prevent a phishing attack is via phishing software.

There are many products in the market and many of them come in or are included in anti virus and anti spam software. The program will filters our incoming emails, searching for any content within the message or in URLs that may be phishing related or carry phishing software.