Phishing: Examples and its Prevention Methods

Phishing is the practice of sending out emails, or spam, or maybe even a website disguised as a prominent agencies, like banks or reputable organizations to gain important information from its unsuspecting victims. These sensitive information could range from user names, passwords, account’s ID, ATM pins, or credit card details.

Examples
Phishing is usually carried out by sending its victim an email. These emails are cleverly masked to hide its true intentions by appearing as if it was sent by banks or a reputable companies. The victims are then lured into clicking a link where they will be redirected to a website designed to mimic a target organization's own visual identity and to harvest user’s personal information, often leaving the victim unaware of the attack. These information could then be used by the attacker to impersonate its victims to gain advantages, like making bank transactions. The victims would then suffer significant financial loss as a result of this.

The second example is like any other phishing email that tries to manipulate the recipient by proposing a special offer that insist that it will only be available for a very limited period of time, which therefore urge recipients to log on to their web site as soon as possible. The methods mentioned above are only two of the many more methods probably used. Attackers are constantly innovating new phishing techniques which could have been already deployed.

Prevention
Although attackers have been developing new techniques, there are some general steps to be taken to avoid falling into this trap. For example, we must always be suspicious of any emails with urgent request for personal information.

Apart from that, do not use any links from emails, instant messages or chat to get to any websites if you suspect the email might not be authentic. Do not hesitant to delete the suspected mails immediately.

We should also avoid filling out forms in emails that ask for personal financial information. We should also regularly check your bank or credit card statements to ensure all transactions are legitimate.

Opinion
we find the phishing activity to be very annoying as it scams people. This act is no different from bank robbery and i really hope that those caught doing this activity to be punished more heavily as it is a serious offense. We also hope that websites handling sensitive information to step up in their security to protect their users.

Relevant Links:

http://www.honeynet.org/papers/phishing/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing