What is a phishing email?
A phishing email is any email that purports to be from a legitimate source, but is seeking to solicit confidential information from the recipient for malicious purposes. Most often, the perpetrators of the email scheme are attempting to acquire information like Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, bank PINs, birthdates, student ID numbers, or email and website passwords. This information, once obtained, is used for identity theft and fraud.
Phishing attacks use both social engineering and technical subterfuge to steal consumers’ personal identity data and financial account credentials. Social-engineering schemes use ‘spoofed’ e-mails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords and social security numbers. Hijacking brand names of banks, e-retailers and credit card companies, phishers often convince recipients to respond. Technical subterfuge schemes plant crimeware onto PCs to steal credentials directly, often using Trojan keylogger spyware.
A phishing email is an email that has been made to look just like a letter or notification from your bank, government agency, or some other business. They are usually written in a way that alerts you to a possible problem with your account. The email says that they want you to click on a link where you’ll be asked to type in your account information. As soon as you hit “send” some criminal has instant access to your bank account. The next thing you know, you’ve become a victim of identity theft. There are ways to protect yourself from this kind of email scam. It’s easy – if you receive an email from a bank you don’t even use, delete it. If you receive an email that seems to be from a company you’ve recently used or your bank, don’t respond to the email in any way. To protect yourself from identity theft, contact the company or your bank to find out if the email is real. If it isn’t, banks usually provide a dedicated customer service phone number or email address where you can send frau
Phishing (or hoax) emails appear to be from a well-known company but can put you at risk. Although they can be difficult to spot, they generally ask you to click a link back to a spoof web site and provide, update or confirm sensitive personal information. To bait you, they may allude to an urgent or threatening condition concerning your account. Even if you don’t provide what they ask for, simply clicking the link could subject you to background installations of key logging software or viruses. Every business on the Internet is a potential victim of phishing email attacks, eroding the trust of their customers in the company’s communications.
