Ecommerce is big business. Hundreds of billions of electronic transactions occur globally each year and this figure is set to continue to rise. Unfortunately as this business has grown it has become prey to some nefarious operators who are keen to get their hands on a slice of the money by any means necessary. Hackers have managed to come up with many devious ways of intercepting sensitive information through the use of malware like viruses and Trojan horses. One method which has been responsible for theft of vast sums of money is known as ‘phishing’. Continue reading to learn how to avoid falling for a phishing scam.
What are phishing scams?
The word phishing refers to a term where email lures are used to ‘phish’ sensitive data like bank logins and passwords from unsuspecting victims. The use of ‘ph’ instead of an ‘f’ in the word comes from early hackers that were known as ‘phreaks‘.
Phishing scams have been around since the mid 1990’s and since their initiation they have grown and developed in order to evade detection. The original method of deceiving users into replying to e-mail requests for passwords and credit card details has now evolved to include fake web pages, installation of Trojan key-loggers, man-in-the-middle data proxies and screen captures.
All of these methods are delivered through electronic communication channels and target sensitive information belonging to the victim.
As a result of the high success rate of phishing scams these systems now even include fake job sites or job offers. Applicants are attracted with the promise of high earnings for a small investment of time. In order to participate all they are required to do is to create a new bank account, then take the funds that have been transferred into it, less their personal commission, and transfer it forward as an international money order. This is money laundering and although the victim here might not lose their own personal funds it is possible to suffer prosecution and even imprisonment as a result of this ruse.
Read also: How Does Phishing Affect Your Business?
How to spot suspicious signs and avoid falling for a phishing scam
Luckily, although hackers are technically gifted, they are also prone to making mistakes and there are plenty of tell-tale signs that will let you know that the email you have received, or the webpage you are on, is part of a phishing scam. If you have an email from a company that you have not dealt with before, it is probably part of a scam.
Phishing emails often have small spelling and grammar mistakes which you will not find if the source is legitimate. Pay close attention to the senders address and if you are unsure compare it with other emails that you have had from that bank or business. If the message requires an immediate response or contains a threat of legal action it may also be part of a con. You should also pay close attention to the security certificates and web address for any site that you are on. Secure web addresses will start with https and display a padlock symbol to show that they are safe.
Read also: How to Detect Malicious Websites
How to make sure you don’t become the victim of a phishing scam
To protect yourself from any sort of email threats especially phishing, it is crucial to stay vigilant and be cautious while performing transactions on the internet.
Take care with any emails that you receive and check them carefully before you proceed.
Do not click on links in messages and use the address bar on your internet browser to locate websites to check their level of security.
Use a disposable or temporary email address for short-term online registrations.
As a general rule of thumb, if you don’t think it looks right, do not enter your information.
Read also: How to Stay Safe Online
Awesome information! Well yes, any suspicious emails should avoided, any unknown links should not be clicked/open and one should be careful while making online transactions. As it is said “Prevention is better than Cure.” Thanks for sharing 🙂
“Prevention is better than cure”, well said Nizam!
Agree, never click links included in your emails specially if you don’t know the person. Very informative Peter. Keep it going!
Nhick
Even if the email is from a known person, I still keep reminding myself to be cautious. Always think twice before clicking any hyperlinks in emails!
Phishing emails have special signs that email firewall might noticed before dropping it your inbox folder. Moreover, a bit of skills required for you to differentiate the mails sent by bank or business and mails sent by intercepto or hackers.
Good information so far indeed and really enjoyed the reading.
One important fact is that: Banks or businesses will NEVER send emails asking you to verify your usernames and passwords. Anyone received such emails should just delete/ignore them!
The best way to stay safe is to never click on any links in e-mails from unknown sources. Not only can you get your financial details compromised, you can also get a virus or Spyware infecting your computer system. Good information Peter and it’s always nice to get a reminder about online security now and then.
If you suspect the email is not authentic, just give a phone call to the company to make sure. Thanks for commenting, Jan.
I really hate phishing scam, they do suck.
They sure are!
Well in my day there was no phishing there was only fishing. I get so tired of those things. Some of them are done very well and look almost exactly like the site they are trying to get your details for. They have logos, and sometimes sneaky links that resemble the real deal. The thing I have been getting a lot of lately are inheritances and lottery stuff. I swear I must have won a billion dollars last year according to all these things I get in my email.
Yeah I’m getting a few of those(inheritance spam emails) too lately. Fortunately my email filtering technology is good enough to screen out these emails from the legitimate ones.
i agree with u, just delete or ignore email from anyone we don’t know, nice post by the way.
My thoughts exactly! Thanks!
Hi Peter,
Phishing scams are certainly scary, especially when you are caught unaware. A good friend of mine suggested something included in your post, and that is to never click a link on my email coming from financial institutions I have an account with.
And your friend was absolutely right about that 🙂
I found it helpful to search the content of the suspected email online. More often than not, the result would show you plenty of instances where other people also received the same email thus confirming that that email is indeed part of a phishing scam.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Elmer!
This is definitely something everyone should know about I’m still hearing a lot of people being reeled into scams like this and just because they weren’t aware.