January 8,2009
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Don't Get Trapped in the Phish Net, Pt.3 –
– What they do and what you should do.What they do: (cont.)
- Conveniently take you somewhere (on the web). Most people who access credit card and banking activities on-line receive e-mails as a convenience to take them to their secure login site. You are always advised that e-mail can easily spoof the reader into believing that these e-mails are legitimate. It's so hard to be sure that it's always advisable not to use this method for getting into your credit card or banking secure site. It's a perfect way for a ‘phisher' to acquire your secure login and password information. Better to always call up your login site manually and then save that URL as a ‘Favorite' in your browser list when accessing credit card or banking accounts.
- Request secure information. By what ever means, these ‘phisher's are attempting to gain secure information in order to access your credit card or banking accounts themselves. Once in, there are many ways that person can pillage around and gather vital information and even, make withdrawals from your credit card or banking accounts.
- Offer a great deal: More than ever, we're inundated with slick promises. The public is becoming more and more skeptical about these offers with time but, as W.C. liked to say: "There's a sucker born every minute." Not all, but many of these scams involve credit card fraud of some type
What you should do:
- If someone calls you for credit card information, always get their phone number and offer to call them back.
- Before calling back, consider not calling but reporting it to authorities instead.
- If you get a suspicious e-mail, forward it to your bank or retailer. These businesses usually have internal security teams around just for this reason. They always try to stay abreast of the latest phishing techniques