Tips On How To Prevent Phishing And Be Secure Online
Phishing is an online criminal activity which is done using social engineering techniques. It includes acquiring sensitive or personal details by fraud. This may include obtaining username and password or credit card details of the target. This is done by acting as a trustworthy unit in electronic communication. It is generally carried out through instant messengers or email. Sometimes though, phone contacts are also used. This online criminal activity was first described in detail in 1987 by a presentation by HP Users Group. This has lead to more and more stress to prevent Phishing and development of anti-Phishing measures.
Online Phishing prevention is one of the main challenges for the software developers and concern for internet administrators or sites in whose name Phishing is being done. The most popular method for stopping this online criminal activity is by making people aware of Phishing and different types of Phishing. Most common type of Phishing is by targeting a company and is known as spear Phishing. Phishing prevention can be done by slightly modifying the browsing habits. Sites which are likely to send some confidential emails should be added to trusted sites list. The address where the email is transferring you to should be copied and pasted in the address bar instead of clicking on the link.
More over, legitimate companies generally address the customers by their user name and do not divulge personal information through an email nor do they request some confidential data through mail. If the mail starts with "Dear Customer" or something like that, it is most likely a Phishing mail, aimed to rob you. Keeping these precautions in mind will definitely help to prevent Phishing. Moreover, many anti-Phishing measures such as features embedded in browsers are been taken.
Some toolbars enable the customer to see the main domain name of the site, and hence help them in recognizing legitimate site. Another very popular method is by maintaining a list of known Phishing sites and blocking them. This feature is available in Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox and Opera 9.1. Mozilla uses the list provided by Google, where as Opera uses lists form PhishTank. Another method to prevent online Phishing, which is currently employed by Bank of America, is by asking the users to enter password only if they display the correct personal image. Email spam filters provided by many mail clients also have filters against Phishing sites. Phishing is a crime legally and many countries are taking this online criminal activity more and more seriously. Many people have been imprisoned for Phishing all over the world in recent years. United States of America has passed a bill which guarantees the Phishers five years in jail and up to 250,000 dollar fine. Many Phishers also use the personal information like mother's name, date or place of birth for opening a credit or illegal account in your name, or using the credit card they get for fraud. Any victim of Phishing can help prevention of Phishing by reporting his experience to the financial institution. They can pursue and can even lead to recovery of your losses. Taking certain easy and small methods can definitely help to prevent Phishing.
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