Phishing – A popular way among scammers.
2009
Many have heard of “Phishing”, but do not really know what it is (and no its not just a mis-spelled way of fishing!). Phishing is when schemers or “hackers” create fake websites in which look like the site they are targeting. They will then have you visit it, and enter your information/details (usually account log-in information), and therefore steal it!
Lets use PayPal for an example. The “hacker” would copy the source, and make an exact replica of PayPal. They would then buy a domain like “paypalsecurityverification.com”. Now they will e-Mail you saying stuff like “We are checking the security of your account, could you please click here to log-in and confirm this is your e-Mail address”. They expect you will click the link, and log in. They then have your account!
How do we stay protected from this?
When you are checking e-Mails like this, first check the e-Mail address, if the address is not like, *******@paypal.com, then it is likely not real. e-Mails can be spoofed by experienced “hackers”. Also, when ever you see a link on the e-Mail that they say to click, put your mouse over it. Even if the link looks like paypal.com, it may be masked and lead to another site. Hovering your mouse pointer over it will show you where it leads to, on some programs you may have to right click, and copy the link location.
Here is an example:
http://paypal.com
This link goes to “paypal-scam-site.com”.
Lastly, just make sure that when ever you log into a website, it is definitely the proper site!
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