Phishing
This is not an advertisement for Microsoft; they don’t need my help to market their products. This is about internet security. I installed Internet Explorer 7 recently. When I first installed it I turned of their free Phishing filter because I thought it was slowing down my web browsing. I was quite please with my decision, I wasn’t going to let Microsoft tell me what to do on my computer. After all, I was already running add blocking software; spy blocking software, anti-virus software and registry cleaning software. What did I need their software for?
Phishing The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had. Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay and were subsequently going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately
A friend of mine asked me to work on their PC for them. One of the things I did was to upgrade their browser to IE 7 like I had done mine. After I was done I was asked about the Phishing filter. I told them I would check it out and let them know as soon as I knew something. So, I turned on the Phishing filter on my browser in order to test the software for my friend. I received an email about selling on EBay (will be a whole different post); I opened and the Phishing filter did its thing. Right away the link in the email was screened and identified as a Phishing site.
The moral of this story; don’t get taken. Utilize the tools out there to protect yourself.
This is not an advertisement for Microsoft; they don’t need my help to market their products. This is about internet security. I installed Internet Explorer 7 recently. When I first installed it I turned of their free Phishing filter because I thought it was slowing down my web browsing. I was quite please with my decision, I wasn’t going to let Microsoft tell me what to do on my computer. After all, I was already running add blocking software; spy blocking software, anti-virus software and registry cleaning software. What did I need their software for?
Phishing The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had. Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay and were subsequently going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately
A friend of mine asked me to work on their PC for them. One of the things I did was to upgrade their browser to IE 7 like I had done mine. After I was done I was asked about the Phishing filter. I told them I would check it out and let them know as soon as I knew something. So, I turned on the Phishing filter on my browser in order to test the software for my friend. I received an email about selling on EBay (will be a whole different post); I opened and the Phishing filter did its thing. Right away the link in the email was screened and identified as a Phishing site.
The moral of this story; don’t get taken. Utilize the tools out there to protect yourself.
