PHISHING ( Fishing )
Another Way Hackers Get You to Give Them Personal Data, So They Can Steal Your Identity...How It Works and Other.
HOW PHISHING WORKS:
There's a new type of email fraud called "phishing." It's pronounced "fishing," and that's exactly what these thieves are doing: "fishing", for your personal financial information via fraudulent emails and imposter Web sites. Essentially, they trick you into revealing your account numbers, passwords, ATM and debit card information, Personal Identification Numbers (PIN), Social Security Numbers and other confidential information that they can use to remove funds from your checking account or run up bills on your credit cards.
With the sensitive information obtained from a successful phishing scam, these thieves can take out loans or obtain credit, ATM or debit cards and even driver's licenses in your name.
But if you understand how phishing works and how to protect yourself, you can help stop this crime.
How Phishing Works:
• The thieves send you an unexpected official looking email or letter that appears to be from a known and trusted financial institution.
• The email attempts to trick you into providing confidential information.
• It may use words such as "urgent notice from billing" or "security notice", or it may lead you to believe your account is frozen or about to be closed. And, it typically asks you to click on a link to a Web site or to call a toll free number and then provide personal financial information
.
THREE SIMPLE STEPS TO FOLLOW WHEN REVIEWING YOUR E-MAIL INBOX
STOPBe alert to messages that refer to your financial accounts and prompt you to act quickly. Resist the urge to open them and reply immediately.
THINK
Ask yourself, "Is this email unexpected and is it asking for confidential information, such as account numbers, passwords, ATM and debit card information, Personal Identification Numbers (PIN), Social Security Numbers and/ or other personal data?
If the answer is "yes", do not respond to it!
(*)Many banks refrain from asking for personal, financial or account information via an e-mail message or Internet pop-up window.
CONTACT The Bank
If you receive a questionable email that looks like it came from a bank:
• Do not open any attachments or click any links in the email.(*) Call the bank you use and ask questions as to why you are receiving request for confidential data that is already in the banks possession.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU'VE PROVIDED PERSONAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO A FRAUDULENT EMAIL
• Make sure to change all of your passwords immediately.
• If you opened an attachment containing a virus or other malicious program, you should clean your computer system using anti-virus software and change your Internet and system passwords.
• Monitor your account activity frequently and report any suspicious activity to (*) your bank immediately if you don't recognize a transaction or suspect fraudulent activity.
• Contact one of the three major credit bureaus and discuss whether you need to place a fraud alert on your file. This will help prevent thieves from opening a new account in your name.
Equifax: (800) 525-6285
Experian:(888) 397-3742
TransUnion:(800) 680-7289
Above Explanation on Phishing, copied from LaSalle Bank flyer...who also offer brochure "Protecting Yourself From Identity Theft and Other Fraud" in any branch or over the phone at (866) 904-7500.
No restrictions..relative to copying... noted on flyer.
Highlights and slight (*) modifacation of sentence structed by page author
Best defense for your PC is avoiding latest scams
By Walter S. Mossberg...Personal technology...Posted Monday, July 31, 2006
If you’re running a Windows computer, you must install an array of security software to fend off an international collection of crooks, hackers, vandals and sleazy business people who aim to invade your PC through the Internet.
You need a good antivirus program, a strong firewall program, an effective antispam program, and a program that specializes in stopping spyware and adware.
Or you could just buy an Apple Macintosh, which isn’t significantly affected (so far) by these threats, other than spam e-mail.
But the fastest growing computer security problem isn’t viruses or other traditional malicious programs, and it can’t be entirely defeated by using security software or by buying a Mac. It’s called “social engineering,” and it consists of tactics that try to fool users into giving up sensitive financial data that criminals can use to steal their money and even their identities.
Social engineering is a broad term that includes "phishing," the practice by which crooks create e-mails and Web sites that look just like legitimate messages and sites from real banks and other financial companies.
It’s closely linked to a newly named category of malicious software called Crimeware — programs that help criminals steal your private financial information.
These terms are confusing and overlapping, but the threat is real. Increasingly, common looking scams are combined with secret installations of software that help criminals spy on you and steal your data.
• Don’t trust e-mail from financial institutions. E-mail is so easily manipulated by crooks that you simply should never, ever consider any e-mail from a financial institution as legitimate. The message may bear a bank’s or a broker’s logo, but you should never respond to such an e-mail, and never click on any link it contains.
There is a very high chance it’s a skillful fraud, and that the link will take you to a clever fake Web site designed to capture passwords and account numbers. The site may also silently install on your PC a program called a key logger, which records everything you type and sends that information back to the crooks.
• Never respond to unsolicited commercial e-mail, or spam, or even click on a link in an unsolicited commercial e-mail. In the old days, responding to spam just got you on more spam e-mail lists. Today, it might also result in the secret installation of a key logger or other malicious software.
Besides, any company that has to resort to spam as a sales tool isn’t likely to have a very good product to offer.
Do you really think that if someone had invented a pill that enlarged penises and breasts, he’d be selling it through spam? He’d have sold it to a big drug company for billions. And nobody in Nigeria needs your bank account to store stolen millions.
Would you buy a stock touted on the street by a complete stranger? If not, why would you buy one touted in a spam e-mail?
The only safe response to spam is to ignore it and delete it.
• Don’t download or use free software unless you’re sure it’s legitimate. Sites offering free cursors, for instance, can secretly install all sorts of bad /~omnis1/Stuff on your PC. This is especially true of free security software, which is sometimes just malicious software posing as a security program. If you suddenly see a security program pop up on your PC, don’t trust it.
There are many legitimate free programs, including some good free security programs, like SpyBot or AVG Anti-Virus. But check them out before downloading. Look them up on the CNet or PC Magazine Web sites, which review most software. If they’re not covered there, assume they’re not legitimate. You may pass up some free programs that are real, but it could save you from huge grief.
Earlier, I said that buying Windows security software, or using a Macintosh, can’t automatically protect you from social engineering schemes, and that’s true.
But they can help. An anti spyware program can’t prevent you from entering sensitive information on a fake Web site, but it might block the installation and operation of spying software from that site.
A Macintosh owner can foolishly give up her bank account number, but most malicious software that crooks try to install won’t work on a Mac.
And there are some new security programs aimed directly at social engineering scams.
McAfee’s Site Advisor program can tell you if a Web site seems bad. A new add on for the Firefox Web browser, called Shazou, can tell you where a Web site’s server is located.
If you think you’re on the Bank of America Web site, but Shazou tells you the server is in Russia, that’s a clue that you’re being scammed. And Symantec plans a new product this fall called Norton Confidential that will tell you if a Web site appears to be a fake.
Also, forthcoming new versions of Firefox and of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser will have built in warnings that sites may be fake.
The best defense against social engineering, however, is to be smart and careful.
© 2006, Dow Jones & Co. Inc.
Highlights added by page author