Phishing Attacks
Educate yourself and prevent Phishing Attacks
Phishing is a type of spam designed to trick you into giving up your personal information such as credit card numbers or online passwords. Phishing attacks work by the scammer sending "spoofed" e-mails that appear to come from a legitimate web site such as a bank, credit card company, or Internet Service Provider (ISP).
The e-mail may ask you to reply with your account information in order to "update security records" or because of "a catastrophic loss of security data." The phishing e-mail may direct you to a web site which looks real, but has been created to steal your personal information. Unsuspecting people are often fooled into handing over credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information.
8 Tips to Protect Against Phishing Attacks:
- Ask your bank about information on making safe transactions.
- Be cautious about opening attachments and downloading files from emails, even if you know the sender.
- Don't reply to any e-mail that requests personal information. Legitimate companies will not send an e-mail asking for account numbers or Social Security numbers, etc., because they know that e-mail is not secure. Now you know it also. Anything you put in an e-mail can potentially be intercepted by someone you don't know. Don't put information in an e-mail that you would not want read out loud during church services because it is really that insecure. If you need to tell your mother a secret, call her on the phone.
- Even if you think the e-mail may be legitimate, don't respond or click on any link in the message; instead, contact the company by phone or visit their web site by typing the URL into the address bar or using a favorite or bookmark that you created previously.
- Check on your accounts regularly. If you see any suspicious transactions report them to your bank or credit card company immediately.
- Before submitting your personal information online even on a legitimate site, check to see if the site uses encryption to protect your personal data:
- Look at the URL in the address bar. If the web site you are visiting is on a secure server it should start with "https://" ("s" for security) instead of the normal "http://".
- Look for a lock icon on the browser's status bar. You can check the level of encryption by mousing over the icon.
- Install anti-virus software and keep it up to date. Scammer's and phishers can also use spyware to steal your personal information.
- Use a firewall, either software or hardware, to restrict access to your computer from the internet.
- If you receive a suspicious email, forward it to the legitimate organization (most companies have an email address for reporting abuse).
Take your information security seriously.