PHISHING: EXAMPLES AND ITS PREVENTION METHODS

Phishing is a type of deception designed to steal your valuable personal data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data, or other information.
Con artists might send millions of fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from Web sites you trust, like your bank or credit card company, and request that you provide personal information.
As scam artists become more sophisticated, so do their phishing e-mail messages and pop-up windows.
They often include official-looking logos from real organizations and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate Web sites.
Example of a phishing e-mail message, which includes a deceptive URL address that links to a scam Web site
To make these phishing e-mail messages look even more legitimate, the scam artists may place a link in them that appears to go to the legitimate Web site (1), but it actually takes you to a phony scam site (2) or possibly a pop-up window that looks exactly like the official site.

PayPal is one of the many examples that phishers has tried to impersonate. PayPal was spelled wrongly in this phishing attempt in the e-mail and the presence of an IP address in the link is both clues that this is a phishing attempt. Another giveaway is the lack of a personal greeting, although the presence of personal details would not be a guarantee of legitimacy. Other signs that the message is a fraud are misspellings of simple words and the threat of consequences such as account suspension if the recipient fails to comply with the message's requests.

PREVENTION METHODS

Keep your information more secure

Before you download files, help protect your computer. First of all, keep your software safety net up-to-date which means update Windows automatically and regularly download the latest antispyware and antivirus updates, and then scan your computer right away. Secondly, improve your computer's overall security with lay the protective groundwork, set your antivirus program to scan all incoming files and e-mail attachments before you open them, use a spam filter and Install and run a program to help detect and remove spyware.

How to handle suspicious e-mail

If you think you've received a phishing e-mail message, do not respond to it, approach links in e-mail messages with caution, don't trust the sender information in an e-mail message, verify the identity and security of the Web site (picture 1.1 and picture 1.2) , type addresses directly into your browser or use your personal bookmarks, don't trust offers that seem too good to be true, report suspicious e-mail, don't enter personal or financial information into pop-up windows and don't enter personal or financial information into pop-up windows.

picture 1.1

picture 1.2

Protect your personal information from ID theft
Strong passwords, make it lengthy and combine letters, numbers, and symbols with the fewer types of characters in your password, the longer it must be, use the entire keyboard or use words and phrases that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess. In addition, password strategies to avoid which means avoid sequences or repeated characters, avoid using only look-alike substitutions of numbers or symbols, avoid your login name, avoid dictionary words in any language, use more than one password everywhere and avoid using online storage.

Protect your privacy with online payment services

How to shop online more safely? Before you select a store, do a background check andeExplore the Web site for third-party seals of approval such as:
or

Before you enter your credit card number, the company should only require personal information that's necessary to complete the purchase and the Web site should use secure technology.

For detailed or futher information, please log in http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/identify.mspx