Feb
26
Phishing is a pretty new tactic being used by criminals that are committed to getting ahold of your identity or getting their hands on other information that is personal to you. They do this by sending out bulk emails that imitate emails sent out by real businesses, hoping to get you to click on links which will take you to a site whose sole purpose is to steal your information.
When using phishing, criminals create emails that are modeled after emails sent out by businesses you might have done business with. With these impostor emails, you are instructed to click on links that have you end up on a bogus site, again modeled after the real company website. Therefore, the thieves are hoping you are fooled into giving out your personal data which is used by the criminal. This is a great reason to use a identity theft protection plan solution.
The main stream media has been giving more scrutiny to phishing exploits as they are becoming more popular. The entire criminal exercise has become very sophisticated, with it being very difficult to distinguish if you have received a phishing email, or are on a phishing website. It is very important that you be aware of emails you receive and the links you click on.
These phishing attempts might be thought of as a very innovative form of spam. Traditional spam is an attempt to trick you to click through to a site and make a purchase. But phishing brings spam to a much different level because the criminals are attempting to trick you into clicking through to a website and giving thieves your personal information.
Of course, once you have given out your valuable personal information, the criminal then has free reign to do anything they want with your information. For example, if you were to give out your login information to a online financial institution, the criminal could gain access to your online account and transfer all of your money to their bank account. Really, the sky is the limit.
Phishing sites and schemes are active for only a very limited time, which means that even if you were successful in notifying law enforcement about the criminal activity, chances are nothing would happen. All the thieves need is a short bit of time to trick a handful of victims to provide what the thieves are looking for, then they are long gone.
Many of the large phishing efforts come from foreign countries, which means even if law enforcement could track them down, there is little that they can do. Your only defense to a phishing plot is to not click on any email links and to use a good Trusted ID solution.
The technique known as phishing is just one more way criminal organizations are making use of highly evolved techniques to steal your personal information so so they can profit from it. Be wary of any email from a financial institution or other company you might do business with. And to be safe, consider using a identity protection service.