Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is an automated form of identity theft, targeted primarily at the casual e-mail user. It tries to make you believe they are genuine emails from popular websites like eBay, Paypal, or even bank, in an attempt to get you to disclose confidential information.

The following are some examples of what a phishing scam e-mail message might look like:

An example of a phishing e-mail message, which includes a deceptive URL address that links to a scam website.

Another example of a phishing email, disguised as an official email from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing secure information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website.

Below are some general tips to help you identify phishing attempts:

• A phishing email calls you to take some actions such as updating your personal details or changing your password that no legitimate institution would ask you to do so by email.

• It urges you to take rapid action, threatening for example to close your account by the end of the day.

• The messages contain no specific information about you and your relationship with the website or information such as account number is incorrect. A legitimate email would contain your full name, username or account number.

• Of course, if you email address is of the form yvonneangie@example.com, do not trust a mail saying “ Dear Yvonne Angie” simply because it contains your name.

Here are some prevention methods that provided by Paypal to protect yourself from become the victim of phishing:

• Learn if it is legitimate: If you are not sure an email is fake, forward the entire email to spoof@paypal.com

1. Simply click "Forward" and send it to spoof@paypal.com
2. Don’t change the subject line or anything else
3. Then once you’ve sent it, delete the email – in most cases, Paypal can verify if an email is fake or not

• One of the simplest and most important things that you can do to protect yourself is to upgrade your browser to one with anti-phishing features- like Internet Explorer 7. It will take just a few minutes and you will be protected with the most up-to-date security available.

To learn more about the prevention methods, you may click on the link below to get more details:
www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/identify.mspx