Phishing for Your Identity
Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes, with an estimated 9 million Americans falling victim to the offense every year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Among the many modes of identity theft, from credit card fraud to mail theft, identity thieves have been spreading their corruption to the Internet through a type of identity theft called Phishing.
What is Phishing
The term phishing is used to describe a scam through which identity thieves utilize spam email or pop-up messages to secure financial information from their targeted victims. The messages often appear to be from legitimate institutions with which the victim does business, such as an Internet service provider, bank or even a government agency.
The fraudulent messages will ask the would-be victims to "update," "validate" or "confirm" their account information, often warning of serious consequences if they do not respond. The messages then will direct the recipients to a web site, which will look just like a legitimate organization's site. The sole purpose of the bogus site is to convince victims to divulge their personal information.
Protecting Yourself from Phishing Scams
There is no need to swear off technology forever in order to protect yourself from falling victim to a phishing scheme. Instead, implementing the following precautionary steps can provide sufficient protection from online identity predators.
Do not reply to emails or pop-up messages asking for personal or financial information. If you receive such a message, do not click on any links within the message or cut and paste a link from the message into your Internet browser. These links can appear to direct the visitor to one site, but actually take the visitor to another site completely.
Do not call the phone number listed in the suspicious message. Often emails sent by scammers list a phone number to call in order to update one's personal information. However, a relatively new technology known as Voice-Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, enables the scammer to use an area code that does not reflect where the scammer actually is located. You should use only those phone numbers that appear on your actual financial statements if you need to contact your bank or credit card company.
Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer. By installing these applications you can protect your computer from software that is designed to monitor actual keystrokes. This software can record what the user types when he or she enters her personal information, such as account passwords.
Do not email your personal information or financial information. To protect yourself from any form of identity theft, you should limit who has access to your personal information. Additionally, you should give out your personal or financial information only to a business if you contacted the business directly and can be sure that the business is legitimate. If the business contacts you, either by email or phone, do not provide any of your information. And don't worry about come off as rude - in today world, legitimate businesses know better than to ask for this information if they contacted you without your request.
Be cautious to download or open attachments sent to you by email. These attachments could contain viruses or spyware that would infect your computer should you open the file. Such caution is necessary even if you know the sender of the email - today's technology has enabled online criminals to tap into individuals online address files and automatically send fraudulent emails to those listed in the address book.
