Friday, June 06, 2008

Phishing

I just received this email:

"As a Firstbanks customer, your privacy and security always come first. We have been dedicated to customer safety and protection, and our mission remains as strong as ever.

We inform you that your Firstbanks Internet banking account is about to expire. It is strongly recommended to update it immediately. Update form is located here.

However, failure to confirm your records may result in account suspension. This is an automated message. Please, do not reply.

Sincerely,

Firstbanks administration"

This email is an example of phishing. From Wikipedia, "phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."

Unfortunately, there are enough people in this world that would see this type of email, get worried because they do not want an account suspension, and follow the link and enter their bank username, password, etc.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I highly recommend checking out PhishTank.com. This is a site, powered by my company, OpenDNS (free DNS service), where the public can submit phishing emails that they receive. Other people then vote on the sites submitted (are they real or a scam?) and those confirmed are added into a database of known phishing sites and blocked for users of the free service, OpenDNS. OpenDNS and Phishtank.com make the internet a safer place for all. It’s a quick tweak – takes just two minutes to set up OpenDNS – and makes a huge difference in terms of safety online.
Check it out!
-Tonya
Intern
OpenDNS

GenialChaos said...

Please be alert to phishing emails that claim to be from the IRS. I've gotten two of them in the past week. Most people will see through their attempts to "provide your refund/stimulus check" to you quickly, but they come from what look to be irs.gov emails, disguised, of course. The true IRS website has information about reporting phishing emails.

Kevin Dixon said...

Thanks for the great tips!

Unknown said...

I've not heard of PhishTank.com, but I'll check it out. Seems like I've had fewer problems with phishers recently, but you never know when the next wave will hit.