Identify and Avoid Phishing Scams

How to Identify and Avoid Phishing Scams

 Phishing is a form of social engineering technique used by hackers to gather sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by posing as a trust worty person/organization. Since most online users are unaware of the techniques used in carrying out a phishing attack, they often fall victims and hence, phishing can be very effective.

With the dramatic increase in the number of phishing scams in the recent years, there has also been a steady rise in the number of people being victimized. Lack of awareness among the people is the prime reason behind such attacks. This article will try to create awareness and educate the users about such online scams and frauds.

Phishing scams usually sends an email message to users requesting for their personal information, or redirects them to a website where they are required to enter their personal information. Here are some of the tips that can be used to identify various phishing techniques and stay away from it.

                                             Identifying a Phishing Scam

1. Beware of emails that demand for an urgent response from your side. Some of the examples are:

    You may receive an email which appears to have come from your bank or financial organization stating that   “your bank account is limited due to an unauthorized activity. Please verify your account asap so as to avoid permanent suspension”. In most cases, you are requested to follow a link (URL) that takes you to spoofed webpage (similar to your bank website) and enter your login details over there. In some cases, phishing emails may ask you to make a phone call. There may be a person or an audio response waiting on the other side of the phone to take away your credit cards details, account number, social security number or other valuable data.

2. Phishing emails are generally not personalized. Since they target a large number of online users, they usually use generalized texts like “Dear valued customer”, “Dear Paypal user” etc. to address you. However, some phishing emails can be an exception to this rule.

3. When you click on the links contained in a phishing email, you will most likely be taken to a spoofed webpage with official logos and information that looks exactly same as that of the original webpages of your bank or financial organization. Pay attention to the URL of a website before you enter any of your personal information over there. Even though malicious websites look identical to the legitimate site, it often uses a different domain or variation in the spelling. For example, instead of paypal.com, a phishing website may use different addresses such as:

•  papyal.com

•   paypal.org

• verify-paypal.com

•  xyz.com/paypal/verify-account/

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