We’ve previously posted an entry on chain letters, hexes and whatnots proliferating over the net. As if by some divine intervention, our Lotus Notes Administrator at the office issued out a memorandum warning us of this scam over the internet.
Have you ever heard of "phishing"? A lot of techy- computer savvy people might be saying "huli ka na sa balita", but I find it too alarming not to pass on for people less techy than, or more or less on the same footing as, me.
Phishing is one of the fastest growing online scams. The perpetrator sends out legitimate-looking emails appearing to be coming some big sites including such as Citibank, eBay, Yahoo, etc. What happens is, the phisher’s mail directs you to a Web page which appears to be legitimate, but actually just elicit sensitive information from you, such as passwords and other personal information.
Let’s take for example an email that tells you that your account has been deactivated due to some problem and informs you to reactivate your account by clicking on a link. This technique works quite well, because, appearing legitimate, you can’t help but be alarmed… According to my friend, it helps to remember though that legitimate companies don’t ask for personal or financial information via email…
So, let’s all be smart…. Or at least pretend to be…. THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK!
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And it really is a numbers game. After all, even if only one out of every 1,000 phishing messages sent out results in confidential financial information being received, the scam would already have been worth it. And it really isn't that difficult for a determined scammer to send out 1,000 or even 10,000 of these messages.
Furthermore, scammers do what they can to ensure that the links to which potential victims are directed look very much like genuine sites. Even url's appear to be the same, except that perhaps an "o" is actually a zero, or maybe an "i" is actually an "í" ... the sort of thing that might go unnoticed.
Although at least browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer have developed tools, both built-in and add-on to address this issue somewhat.
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