What is Phishing? In computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Banks and online payment services are typically common targets.
The scenario is this: you get an email from support@bankofamerica.com, subject: Verify your account information (or it could be something else, but usually mentions something about your account). You say to yourself, “hey I got an account with Bank of America, maybe there is a problem with my account. I should login and check it out.” As you open the email, everything looks legitimate, there is the Bank of America logo, plus the email is from support@bankofamerica.com, so far everything looks fine. There is also a link in this email that appears to take me to the Bank of America site.
You click on the link and it takes you to what looks like the Bank of America web page, still everything looks fine. You enter in your Account information then click submit. You have just been the victim of a Phishing scam.
How can you prevent this?
· Legitimate emails from financial institutions will never ask you to enter or reply with personal information such as your Social Security Number or credit card number. If you receive these types of emails and you haven’t modified your account in any way, it’s best to call your financial institution.
· Another quick way to see if the email is real or not, you can hover your mouse over the link contained in the email (don’t click it) you should then see the actual URL, which most of the time is not the real URL. It could be an IP address or another domain name that is similar but not the actual domain name.
· Don't use the links in an email, instant message, or chat to get to any web page if you suspect the message might not be authentic.
Everyone is bound to get one or more of these Phishing emails, just make sure you are thinking through everything and if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is.
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