Phishing+Inc

**Phishing for Your Personal Information**  **Phishing**, in cyber-parlance, is attempting to collect passwords, logins, credit card data, spending habits and the like by posing as a legitimate entity. Phishers have a variety of tactics up their sleeves to hoodwink you into releasing your data to them. Phishers leave their fingerprints in a variety of ways.
 * frightening you -- "If you don't act now, you could experience a low score on your credit report."
 * enticing you to click on a link
 * misspellings and/or messages that begin with "Dear Valued Customer"

 __Advertisements on Trusted Sites__  In September 2009, visitors to a New York Times Web site clicked on an advertisement that displayed a popup window telling readers that their computers may be infected with a virus. Only by purchasing and installing the product in the advertisement would the reader be able to avoid an imminent virus attack. The truth is, the rogue antivirus product that appeared on the NYT site installed a malicious software (a.k.a malware) that lowers security settings in browsers, which is tantamount to lowering the gate for the barbarians.

 If you see such a warning, don't click on it. Instead, quit and restart your Web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.).

 __Phony Customer Service__  This involves impersonating a legitimate entity. Scammers mass-mail a seemingly personalized email message. Often the message is from a bank and contains a phony chat option. A phony customer service representative requests additional information to "confirm" the identity of the account holder. The account holder gives up the info and voila! the scammer has crucial data in hand.

 If you receive such a message, delete it. Contact your bank by phone using a number you already have or in person and find out if they were truly trying to get in touch with you.

 __How to protect yourself__ 0 Be suspicious of an email asking you for information. Delete it oUse a browser that is resistant to malware. Firefox and Google Chrome are high on the list of "strong" browsers. Internet Explorer is one of the weakest. (I gave up on IE after my computer nearly got hacked into on several occasions. Since I've switched to Firefox, no problems.)

 o Use a malware resistant operating system (a.k.a OS platform). PC World suggests Mac or Linux. It's not guaranteed that these operating systems won't get hacked into; it's just that they are less likely to be targeted than Windows.

<span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> o Use anti-malware software. Webroot Internet Security Essentials is one.

<span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> o Update your software regularly. This isn't the end-all and be-all. You must use anti-malware software with other measures of protection. Malware rends to be ahead of the curve.

<span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> o Keep your wits about you when using high-profile social networking sites.

<span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">You can forward a suspicious message to the following watchdogs
 * <span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">reportphishing@antiphishing.org
 * <span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">spam@uce.gov

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Check your credit reports frequently. Some states, provinces and territories have laws on the books that allow consumers to request a free credit report at least once a year.

<span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 98%;"> Sources: PC World December 2009 <span style="color: #420542; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 98%;">Phising Scams In Plain English by Common Craft