Beware of phishing

A lot has been said about phishing, but still it’s important to remind you of the basic risks involved and the precautions you should take. The vital part in combating phishing is knowledge how to correctly identify phishing instances and ignore its solicitations.

Phishing (pronounced fishing, just as a term for catching fish) is basically sending copies of fraudulent emails in hopes that the recipient will react to them and do what it asks him/her to do – provide financial or login info to the sender by logging to the prescribed address.

These forged messages purport to come from a legitimate organization – usually a bank or other financial or service provider, carrying all the hallmarks of the would-be authentic message. These messages seek to renew your account info but of course act by withdrawing all your funds or stealing passwords from real accounts that you provided access to.

So what are the precautions? The answer is quite simple – as phishing is a form of social engineering, you should exercise common sense and never give away your data without personally confirming with the issuing entity. Rarely or never would a bank ask you to provide data by email. Additionally, you may find phishing filters in the two leading browsers a bit helpful.