Someone’s “Phishing” for Your Personal Information
Susan Manley, Bradley University
Peoria, Illinois

If you receive an official-looking e-mail message that requests you to confirm personal or financial account information on a website…don’t do it! Such messages are “phishing” for your personal information, and you don’t want to join the growing list of victims.

“Phishing” messages arrive by e-mail and usually include the corporate logo of a legitimate financial institution. The messages instruct you to click on an embedded hyperlink that will take you to a website where you may confirm your account information. The trouble is that the website looks like the real thing, but it isn’t. Furthermore, to encourage your participation, the message also claims that “Access to your account may be suspended if you don’t comply with this request.”

The purpose of “phishing” messages is to lure unsuspecting people into divulging their personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, and other confidential information. The perpetrators set up temporary websites that look exactly like real corporate websites, so victims have no idea that they are dealing with “spoofed” websites when they click the hyperlinks in the messages. And, once the damage is done, the websites are taken down in a matter of days. If you click on the link in a “phishing” e-mail, you will go to a website that looks legitimate, but you may end up on a “phisherman’s” hook.

In recent months, attackers from all over the world have sent messages that looked like they have originated from companies like Citibank, PayPal, Ebay, Amazon, and Citizens Bank. Unfortunately, many people have fallen prey to these fraudulent schemes. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (www.antiphishing.org), both the number and the types of “phishing” attacks have dramatically increased in recent months.

For more information on “Phishing” and how you can avoid becoming a victim, visit www.antiphishing.org. Visit http://survey.mailfrontier.com/survey/quiztest.html to take a brief “phishing” IQ test and view samples of “phishing” messages. Be careful out there! Someone is “phishing” for your personal information.

Susan Manley is a Program Director in Continuing Education at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois and co-host with John Iasiuolo of the Las Vegas-based Computer Outlook Radio Talk Show. For more information, visit: www.computeroutlook.com.