Phishing is defined as:
| "the practice of luring unsuspecting Internet users to a fake Web site by using authentic-looking email with the real organization's logo, in an attempt to steal passwords, financial or personal information, or introduce a virus attack; the creation of a Web site replica for fooling unsuspecting Internet users into submitting personal or financial information or passwords" |
The process of phishing varies from those who employ it person to person, to this date the most common methods recorded are the following scenarios:
1: An e-mail telling you something to good to be true "congrats it has been discovered after years of searching that you have are actually the long lost inheritant of a large sum of money"
2: A pop up banner reading something to the effect of "congratulations your our 999,999,999,999th customer and you've won a prize simply click the following link and enter the following mandatory fields"
and lastly the most recent and most effective of all;
3: The fake website.
Each scenario comes with it's own tell tale warnings and for those of you who arent aware of them, allow me to highlight them for you.
The following should raise alarm bells:
Scenario 1:
*Why would anyone spend countless hours of their precious time trying to find someone to give them money that they could probably use themselves?
*9 times out of ten it's accompanied by a request for verification of identity to unlock the funds, this is known as identity theft, rest assured days after handing over the info required you'll probably find your wanted for murder in 14 American states when you live in Iceland and have never ventured past your front door.
Scenario 2:
*ANYTHING that requires you to pay money in order to receive an award/prize/gift or anything you haven't really asked for (short of postage and packaging) should always be highly scrutinized, this is not to say you are not one of the fortunate ones, but chances are your are in-fact not.
*You will probably find that after refreshing the page twenty times or coming back to it days later, you, yes you, are still the winning number, this alone should raise enough cause for concern.
This one is the most dangerous and hard to catch, this will sucker you right out of your password and login details in seconds and you wont know it hit you. These are hard enough to detect HOWEVER the following should be noted; the original link, for example All-Poetry should nearly always read as follows:
"http://storywrite.com/"
if for some reason it reads something to the effect of:
"http://aallpoetry.com1" or "http://allpoetry.com12" this is a notable chance that you are in-fact not on the site you were looking for, merely a well placed duplicate.
The computer industry is growing ever more concerned of the phishing game and has (and i must commend Microsoft here) installed several high regard features on it's systems including phishing filters and detectors, any of which can be employed to scan a suspect site at any given time. HOWEVER the key here not to rely solely on the software, as it is man made and therefore not without error, human vigilance is also key.
Remember; if in doubt check it out.
Adding your comment:
So catchy! *loves it*
