What is phishing?
Phishing involves using email and websites that impersonate the email and websites of organizations the target victim already deals with. The goal is to gather information in order to impersonate the target victim while a committing crime. The impersonating email (“phishing email” or “phish-mail”) lures target victims to the impersonating website (“phishing site” or “phish-site”). At the phishing site, target victims are asked to divulge confidential information such as their account name or number, password, mailing address, credit card number, social security number, mother’s maiden name and so on. The information obtained may be used to impersonate the victim while committing fraud, identity theft, theft of services, spamming, corporate espionage and other crimes. 1. Conventional phishing involves sending mass amounts of unpersonalized phishing email. The small percentage of phishing email recipients who already deal with the impersonated organization are the target victims. 2. Targ
Phishing, pronounced fishing, is the act of sending an email to a user falsely claiming to be a legitimate enterprise in an effort to scam the user into surrendering private information. The phishing email asks the user to visit a website where they are asked to update personal information, such as: passwords and credit card, social security, and financial institution account numbers that the legitimate enterprise already has. The website is designed to steal the user’s information, which is often used for identity theft. The email may state something like, “Your account will expire if you do not login and update your profile.
Phishing, (pronounced fishing), is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be a legitimate enterprise in an effort to scam the user into surrendering private information. 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. The web site is designed to steal the user’s information, which is often used for identity theft. The e-mail may state something like, “Your account will expire if you do not log on and update your profile.” That is the first indicator that this is a phishing attempt; no legitimate financial institution would ever ask for this information or close an account if it was not provided.
Phishing is a form of criminal activity using social engineering (gaining information from unsuspecting legitimate users) techniques, characterized by attempts to fraudulently obtain sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card account details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication, such as an email. For information about phishing and how to avoid being a victim go to http://onguardonline.gov/phishing.
Phishing is the act of sending an email posing as a trusted entity in an effort to extract non-public personal information (NPI) from unsuspecting victims. This information is gathered by either requesting some type of response to the email itself or by having the victim follow an email embedded Internet link. Once a user follows the link, they often arrive at a very legitimate looking Web site and are requested to submit some type of information (often personal – social security number, banking or credit card information, and/or account numbers). Believing the email and Web site to be legitimate, users often comply, only to find that they have turned their information over to an unknown, often untraceable, entity. Phishers may further build your trust by leaving you a precursory voicemail message that you will soon be receiving an email from “ABC Bank & Trust” – this twist leads you to have greater feelings of legitimacy when the fraudulent email does arrive and increases the likeliho
