Have you ever received an emails from UPS, FedEx or the IRS or even from a Bank asking you to logon and retype your information because they need to update their database. Or you need to click on a link to update your address because they can not deliver your package? Well that is called Phishing (pronounced “Fishing”) becuase that is exactly what the spammers are trying to do with you, they are fishing you to get your personal information or Credit Card Number.
This of course is a fraud technique used by online criminals to obtain your personal information, they can steal your financial information, identity, home address, phones, etc. It all depends on how much information you give them. Some others don’t even want information, the link just include an executable file that will infect your computer, just for fun. Yes as you heard it, just for fun because there is not really a goal or a reason behind it.
The purpose of course of these type of messages is to obtain some times the following information:
- Name or username of your account
- Address and Phone Number
- Passwords or Pin
- Bank Accounts
- Credit Card Numbers
- Social Security
- and more…
I won’t even explain what they can do with this information cause I think you know what they can do.
How Can you tell if the email is fake?
Sadly to say is very difficult sometimes, you just have to be smarter than them. The attacks are becoming more sophisticated and more difficult for an avarage person to tell if the message is fraudulent. For example many of the phising emails can include real address and even the company logo to make it look legit. Even the links look legit sometimes. But if you read my post Don’t get trick by Spam you should be able to identify at least most of them.
