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Phishing For Your Personal Identity

By: Bill Westergate

Have you ever received an email directing you to a familiar website where you are being asked to update your personal information? The website requires you to verify or update your passwords, credit card numbers, social security number, or even your bank account number. The business name is one that you recognize and one that you've conducted business with in the past. So, you click on the convenient "take me there" link and proceed to provide all the information they have requested.

You find out much later, unfortunately, that the website is bogus. It was created with the sole intent to steal your personal information. You have just been a victim of a "phishing" expedition.

Phishing (pronounced as "fishing") is the act of sending a deceptive email to lure a recipient to surrender their personal information. The intent of the phisher is disguise themselves as a legitimate company in order to fool the recipient into surrendering private information.

It is not at easy as you may think to spot an email that is phishing for information. The email that you receive will have been carefully crafted to appear to be from a legitimate company, like a major bank or PayPal. The "From" field of the e-mail may have the .com address of the company mentioned in the e-mail. The clickable link even appears to take you to the company's website. However, this is a completely bogus site crafted to look exactly like the company that it is pretending to be.

These phishing emails are never harmless. The people behind these emails are serious about their criminal activities. They have spent a great deal of time in creating emails that look authentic. You need to be very cautious about all emails requesting personal information. Keep in mind that most legitimate companies will not send you an email asking you to login to your account.

You should be aware that the "From Field" in the email that you receive can easily be changed by the sender. The email will look like it is coming from a company that you are familiar with. However, looks can be deceiving. Keep in mind that the phisher will go all out in attempting to make their email look as legitimate as possible. They will usually use logos or images from the legitimate site. Finally, they usually include a clickable link that the recipient can follow to conveniently update their information.

A great way to check the legitimacy of the link is to point at the link with your mouse. Then, look in the bottom left hand screen of your computer. The actual website address to which you are being directed will show up for you to view. It is a very quick and easy way to check if you are being directed to a legitimate site. The address that you will see is usually fairly long and complicated. For example, if they were masquerading as PayPal, rather than an address such as www.paypal.com/login, it could be something like www.paypal.mqrs.com/?login/142647/4598.php

Never click the links within the text of the fraudulent e-mail. As well, you should always delete the e-mail immediately. Once you have deleted the e-mail, empty the trash box in your e-mail accounts as well. If you are truly concerned that you are missing an important notice regarding one of your accounts, then type the full URL address of the website into your browser. You can then be confident that you are, in fact, being directed to the true and legitimate website. You can also notify security at the legitimate company and let them know that you have received a "phishing" email.

Article Source: http://www.articlebankonline.com

Bill Westergate is a computer guru who often writes on technology topics. For free spyware resources go to Spyware Removal Free or download NoAdware for free and rid your computer of malicious adware and spyware.

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