Jun

Phishing

Best Practices – How to identify and avoid Phishing

Having personally received a new rash of Phishing email messages; these types of attacks are clearly still a very real and dangerous threat.

“To Click or not to Click”

This is the question

The answer is not to click! Just don’t do it!

Financial institutions will not send you an email asking you to click or otherwise provide your detailed personal and account information. They will not do that period. If you have questions regarding any account, go directly to your financial institution’s website. Simply said, open your web browser and enter your financial institution’s web address. This is how to go directly to any particular web address. Do not trust or click on a link in an email or otherwise.

Phishing scams nearly always use fear to trigger a response from you.

“Phishing” involves the use of fraudulent emails and copy-cat websites to trick you into revealing valuable personal information.

Phishing scams may use any or all of the following tactics to trick you:

Names of Real Companies
“From” an Actual Employee
URLs that “Look Right”
Urgent Messages

Below is a screen shot of a recent such message.

I have highlighted tale tale areas in yellow. It utilizes all of these tactics. Additionally the entire message – the complete body of the email not just the supposed link is a hot click-able area. In other words, if you click anywhere in this message, you will be taken to the fraudulent site and may be compromised. Again an example of “not to click”!

How to avoid

Your first line of defense is your own common sense. If or when you receive an email asking you to click to provide or verify any personal or account information or activity, do not click. Whether it looks legit or not, do not click. If you have valid questions or concerns regarding any account’s activity or information, go directly to that institution’s website or call them.

Second line of defense is proper anti-phishing software. Not all include anti-phishing protection. Check the features and reviews carefully. One award winning and highly recommended package is PC Tools Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 2010. It offers phishing protection on top of absolutely critical anti-spyware and anti-virus protection. Or contact your anti-virus vendor of choice regarding phishing protection. I can’t stress enough the importance of proper software protection, just remember common sense is your first line of defense!