Phishing: (fish’ing) (n.)
This is when someone sends you an e-mail falsely claiming to be the bank, insurance company, online retailer or other institution that you’ve dealt with in the past. Their goal is to try to get you to give them your bank account logon name and password so they can steal your funds. Unsuspecting victims have lost money under this scam. You might receive an e-mail box full of this terrible information.
Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on “fishing”, the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that some will be tempted into biting.
It’s an online form of identity theft. The e-mails being sent now are considered unsolicited because they’re notolicited.
You didn’t ask for it:
When you respond to an e-mail that appears to be from a financial institution or any other organization for that matter, you are actually giving them permission to records your sensitive information as it appears on the Internet.
In fact, they might have records of your online shopping preferences, your bank account numbers, and other similar information.
Moreover, they could use such information to attempt to duplicate your identity. They could then use this information to direct you to the exact bank or organization that has your account, with hopes that you’ll divulge your details there.
Tip #1: Don’t Open It
That said, don’t open or even look at an e-mail you receive that request your personal information. Simply delete it. Don’t click on any links – just hit the delete button. Make sure that the sender is legitimate. If it turns out to be a fake, then there’s a possibility that the e-mail could be a spoof. Take these steps to be certain.
Tip #2: Do This Scan Thing
If you receive a suspicious e-mail requesting your personal information, you will be helped if you perform a quick scan of your e-mail with a search engine. Some things to check for:
If you have never received a request for your personal information, then it’s safe to say that this is a spoof.
However, if you have received such an e-mail, then consider it a form of harassment. It is best to ignore any e-mail that requests your personal information, and delete it immediately.
However, if you are in a situation where you must to respond, then read on to see how to submit a complaint.
Step 1: Contact Ebay
You can report e-mails to eBay that appear to be fraudulent. Before you do this, though, you want to make sure that you’re dealing with a genuine eBay user, as she will most likely be very helpful in getting rid of the spammer.
Step 2: Respond to the message
Once you have reported a spoof e-mail to eBay, you will get a response from the company informing you that they will ban the IP address that was used to send the spoof e-mail. This is a hard step because by this time pop-ups and other advertisements have already been installed on your browser. It was never your intention to read these advertisements, but they somehow got into your computer.
Step 3: Delete the message
Once you have banned the IP address, you can deleted the e-mail. Each browser has a spam filter that allows you to delete spam that is threatening to you or your computer.
Some people recommend that you do not forward spam that is threatening to ban to a specific person. However, if the spam is threatening to a specific person (such as a insurance company) then you may want to forward it to that person.
Step 4: Don’t Get charred by an e-mail
Not long after forwarding a spoof e-mail to eBay, a second, similar one appeared from another IP address. This one was executed by a company called Account Guard. (“https” means “secure”) Account Guard rates its servers on how safe they are from being exploited by spammer.
Since Account Guard’s system was installing, a spoof e-mail was sending recipients a message saying that their account was about to be closed unless they made a purchase. Account Guard immediately suspended the account of the perpetrator, who was a fake buyer.
The story has a happy ending. After a lengthy investigation, the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APHWG) was able to trace the source of the fraudulent messages to a specific computer in China. Using a fast computer with a configured firewall, the scammers were able to install software that continuously downloaded their message, making them undetectable by filter and firewall software.
Creating a warning involves much more than just creating an alert. You can create a warning that redirects potential victims to a specific website or addresses.
