What Phishing Attacks Are

Phishing attacks are one of the oldest forms of malicious activity on the Internet. They date back to some time in the early 1990's and were popular on AOL. The definition of a phishing attack is an attempt to obtain someone's personal information by posing as an established organization or business and asking for personal details.

The most common form of phishing attacks are sent through e-mail. The target receives a message from an organization that seems legitimate but is really from a fraudster. For example purposes, we'll say the target thinks it is a letter from their bank. The message they receive may even contain the same images and logos that the bank usually sends in e-mails to their customers. They phisher will usually claim something to the effect of on-line banking usernames and passwords having been lost during a technical failure. This is the set-up for asking the victim to enter their login details. Similar fronts have been used to trick PayPal members.

How To Indentify Phishing Attacks

The way to spot one of these scams, besides the dead giveaway of being asked for private details, is the link to the web site which asks them for the personal information. In every case, this link goes to a page which is not on the real domain name of the organization they are claiming to represent. For example, if you receive an e-mail purportedly from PayPal saying they lost your password and give you a link to click to enter it, you might notice the link goes to an address like http://123.456.789.10/PayPal/auto-login or http://www.somewebsite.com/PayPal/login or something similar. If the link really went to PayPal's web site it would start with http://www.paypal.com instead of the numbers. Avoid clicking these links as they are fraudulent and may also contain spyware or viruses.

Why People Phish

The top reason why this type of cyber crime is perpetrated is to gain access to on-line financial records. Another reason is to get enough on a person to steal their identity. The individuals who send this junk out usually have programs which search the web looking for pages with e-mail addresses published on them. The addresses are then collected into a list and the fake letters are sent to them. Others obtain lists of addresses from underground sellers.

Vishing

A new similar problem arising is vishing. This is the same as phishing but a phone call is used instead of the Internet.

Conclusion

Always use common sense and remember the usual red flags. Pay attention to what links you click when you receive a notice similar to the ones described here. Make sure these links point you to the real web site. Stay protected.

Did you enjoy this article? Please share it!