Phishing for an Identity
Phishing is rapidly becoming on the largest threats to your personal, financial, and emotional wellbeing. No I am not talking about Saturday afternoons out on the boat with your grandfather, listening to stories that being with When I was your agenow while these probably conjure up horrific childhood memories of such stores, they in no way come close to the horror felt by victims of Phishing.
Phishing (fishing to trick people into providing their personal and financial information by pretending to be from a legitimate company, agency or organization) is a fairly new scam propagating itself on the internet in many different forms. Each has the same sole purpose of convincing you to volunteer your personal and financial information and hand if over to these crooks.
One such attack was targeting PayPal (www.PayPal.com) customers, by sending out mass email (spam) stating that there had been a security breach and the account has been suspended until you verify some information. Well this may sound reasonable, but the truth behind this was it was not from PayPal; rather a carefully orchestrated scam to capture your PayPal username and password, credit card information, debt card pin number, mailing address, and social security number among others. What made these even scarier was the fact that the message was designed so wellusing PayPals logo and website layout perfectlythat even I had to take a second look. This convinced people of the legitimacy of the message and prompted individualsestimated in the thousandsto happily provide their information over to the scammer.
There were a few items that made this email message stand out as a fraudulent spam message rather than legit communication:
Greeting: The greeting at the top of the message was Dear PayPal Member. This should alert you as PayPal, along with most major companies will address you by name or company associated with the account. EX: Dear Steven
Website address: The website address that was being linked to from within the message was not www.PayPal.com, but rather a very clever hoax. When you look at the link in the message it appears to go to PayPals website, but when you click on it a different address (one of the scammers website) loads.
Now that I have scared you enough for one article, which this is not my intention to do so, but you must also realize the severity of this issue; there are a few simple things to keep in mind. Do not trust email messages. Let me say that one more time DO NOT TRUST EMAIL MESSAGES. If something seems fishy (no pun intended), do not trust it. If it tells you to update your information, call the company up that it mentions or login to your account as you normally would. In this example, you could call PayPals customer service number or login at PayPals website (visit it by opening your web browser and manually entering http://www.PayPal.com--not through the link provided in the email). Doing so will verify that you are not falling victim to Phishing.
Steven Carlson is an expert in identity theft and issues relating to credit restructuring solutions. He is serves as the President and CEO of Digital Intelligence Group, Inc. (http://www.DigitalIG.com) a company that provides identity theft and credit restructuring services through its brand eCreditRx (http://www.eCreditRx.com).
Consciousness On Internet Phishing Practices
In the same way that the Internet has totally revolutionalized the age of online transactions, the security breaches caused b...
Watch Out For These Email Security Threats
Many people in the modern world use email everyday, as a means of communication for both work and play. However, email does ...
Email Spam and Phishing
It seems like the volume of email spam has doubled in the last month. Increasingly, we receive daily emails for better mortga...
Beat Spam With Disposable Email Addresses
The World Wide Web, although a virtual world, is not actually a very safe place to be in. You can get your identity stolen. Y...
Why Spyware Is So Dangerous To You
One of the Bad Guys is Spyware and among the very bad Spyware we find "malicious phishing". People who create Phishing sites ...
Way to Block Spam - Bayesian Filter to Fight Back Spammers
The most prolific and path breaking innovation of last century had been the developments in the communication field. It liter...
What if We Stopped SPAM?
What if we could defeat SPAM? What if no one could hijack a Zombie Computer? What if SPAM did not come from half way around t...
Federal Trade Commission and Its Service to Consumers
The Federal Trade Commission is one of the greatest agencies in the United States Government and they are in charge of protec...
3 Quick Cash Loan Tips You Must Know
Quick cash loans or payday cash advance loans are not evil - all by themselves.They're not cheap either, of course.What IS cr...
Federal Trade Commission Vows to Fight Spyware and SPAM Fraud
The Federal Trade Commission has been telling the world how they will stop SPAM and what happened? Well since they started it...
Bunch of Blundering Buffoons with Bananas Baffle with Blistering BS at FTC
Recently the United States Justice Departments Federal Trade Commissions Consumer Protection Divisions Anti-Spam Group gave a...
FTC Worthless in Every Regard
Some say that the Federal Trade Commission is worthless in every regard and as a studier of their endeavors I completely agre...
Quality Business Cards for your Business Identity
Taking a look at our surroundings we can barely tell that competition is tough. Businesses are vying for recognition and iden...
How To Prevent The New Jury Duty Scam
Pay close attention, so you do not fall victim of this scam. Just read and discover what it is all about.This type of scam, a...
Direct Mail Leads - Brand Identity Guru
Direct mail can be one of the most effective tactics to reach your target audience. Developing a strategy for direct mail is ...
What You Must Know About Spam
What Is Spam?When referring to emails, according to the NCES (National Centre for Education Statistic), "Spam refers to elect...
Spam Blockers - What They Can Do to Protect You
Spam blockers might be among the most important things that have to come along with your computer. This is most especially tr...
Leadership style and logical levels of influence and change
When seeking to get more creativity and innovation into an organization, it is important to have an understanding of the diff...
Federal Trade Commission Shows Its True Abilities
The Justice Departments little orphan agency the FTC, which stands for Federal Trade Commission, which is the agency in-charg...
Spyware Downloads
Spyware downloads are files made by hackers that allow them to pry and see what the users purchase, browse and download. They...