Delhi Advanced Toastmasters Club

Speech: CC+9 -> Technical Presentations Project 4

 

Phishing

 

(Fishing (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

 

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, that the legitimate organization already has.

 The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.

 

 For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had.

Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by eBay and were subsequently going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately.

 

 

Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on “fishing,” the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.

To see phishing sites developed exclusively for educational and informative purposes, click here.

(DISCLAIMER: I donot take any responsiblity over whatever illegal use that you may make of this article or the links provided within)

 

 

The number and sophistication of phishing scams sent out to consumers is continuing to increase dramatically. While online banking and e-commerce is very safe, as a general rule you should be careful about giving out your personal financial information over the Internet.

 

 

I have compiled a list of recommendations below that you can use to avoid becoming a victim of these scams.

 

•        Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information unless the email is digitally signed, you can’t be sure it wasn’t forged or ‘spoofed’ phishers typically include upsetting or exciting (but false) statements in their emails to get people to react immediately they typically ask for information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. phisher emails are typically NOT personalized, while valid messages from your bank or e-commerce company generally are.

 

 

•        Don’t use the links in an email to get to any web page, if you suspect the message might not be authentic instead, call the company on the telephone, or log onto the website directly by typing in the Web address in your browser.

 

 

•        Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for personal financial information you should only communicate information such as credit card numbers or account information via a secure website or the telephone

 

 

•        Always ensure that you’re using a secure website when submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser to make sure you’re on a secure Web server, check the beginning of the Web address in your browsers address bar – it should be “https://” rather than just “http://”

 

 

•        Consider installing a Web browser tool bar to help protect you from known phishing fraud websites

Cyber Defender is a free browser toolbar that alerts you before you visit a page that’s on Cyber Defender’s list of known fraudulent phisher Web sites.

It’s free to all Internet users – download at http://www.cyberdefender.com/products_toolbar.html

 

 

•        Regularly log into your online accounts, don’t leave it for as long as a month before you check each account

 

 

•        Regularly check your bank, credit and debit card statements to ensure that all transactions are legitimate if anything is suspicious, contact your bank and all card issuers