Phishing Scams

[charleychacko]

(FISH.ing) pp. Creating a replica of an existing Web page to fool a user into submitting personal, financial, or password data. â€"adj.   

Recent phishing victims include Bank of America, Best Buy, Earthlink, PayPal and eBay.  People were directed to Web pages that looked nearly identical to the companies' sites.

Phishing had its coming out recently when the FBI called it the "hottest, and most troubling, new scam on the Internet."  The name appears to have no connection to the band Phish, an FBI spokesman said.

The term phishing comes from the fact that Internet scammers are using increasingly sophisticated lures as they "fish" for users' financial information and password data. The most common ploy is to copy the Web page code from a major site - such as AOL - and use that code to set up a replica page that appears to be part of the company's site. (This is why phishing is also called spoofing.)

A fake e-mail is sent out with a link to this page, which solicits the user's credit card data or password.

When the form is submitted, it sends the data to the scammer while leaving the user on the company's site so they don't suspect a thing.

How to avoid getting “hooked” by  a phishing scam.

- If you receive an unexpected email saying your account will be shut down unless you confirm your billing information, do not reply or click any links in the e-mail body.

- Before submitting financial information through a Web site, look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar. It means your information is secure during transmission.

- If you are uncertain about the information, contact the company through an address or telephone number you know to be genuine.

- If you unknowingly supplied personal or financial information, contact your bank and credit card company immediately.

- Suspicious email can be forwarded to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, and complaints should be filed with the state attorney general's office or through the FTC at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login.