Top 10 Phishing Scams as of 06/02/2009

Top 10 Phishing Scams 06/02/2009

If you receive a simi­lar mes­sage in your inbox you should delete it and not follow the links in the mes­sage. If you want to check your account, you should type the bank or com­pany web­site directly into your web brow­ser, or add a book­mark, rather than follo­wing links in an email. If you are unsure if an email you receive is legi­ti­mate, visit the com­pa­nies web­site directly, phone the com­pany, or con­tact their Cus­to­mer Ser­vi­ces or fraud depart­ment (usually fra…@companyname.com) to con­firm that they sent the mail.

Upda­ted Last: June 2, 2009

  1. secu­rity issues
  2. impor­tant announce
  3. Secu­rity alert
  4. Noti­fi­ca­tion from Com­mon­wealth Bank
  5. Alert : Update Your Online Ban­king Information.
  6. urgent mes­sage from Marshall & Ils­ley Bank
  7. secu­rity alert
  8. safe­guar­ding cus­to­mer information
  9. online ban­king alert
  10. offi­cial information

Ok, so you are now armed with the top 10 phishing emails, and you want to avoid them.  The FTC (Fede­ral Trade Com­mis­sions) has put out these help­ful hints:

  • If you get an email or pop-up mes­sage that asks for per­so­nal or finan­cial infor­ma­tion, do not reply. And don’t click on the link in the mes­sage, either. Legi­ti­mate com­pa­nies don’t ask for this infor­ma­tion via email. If you are con­cer­ned about your account, con­tact the orga­ni­za­tion men­tio­ned in the email using a telephone num­ber you know to be genuine, or open a new Inter­net brow­ser ses­sion and type in the company’s correct Web address your­self. In any case, don’t cut and paste the link from the mes­sage into your Inter­net brow­ser — phishers can make links look like they go to one place, but that actually send you to a dif­fe­rent site.
  • Area codes can mis­lead. Some scam­mers send an email that appears to be from a legi­ti­mate busi­ness and ask you to call a phone num­ber to update your account or access a “refund.” Because they use Voice Over Inter­net Pro­to­col tech­no­logy, the area code you call does not reflect where the scam­mers really are. If you need to reach an orga­ni­za­tion you do busi­ness with, call the num­ber on your finan­cial sta­te­ments or on the back of your cre­dit card. In any case, delete ran­dom emails that ask you to con­firm or divulge your finan­cial information.
  • Use anti-virus and anti-spyware soft­ware, as well as a fire­wall, and update them all regu­larly. Some phishing emails con­tain soft­ware that can harm your com­pu­ter or track your acti­vi­ties on the Inter­net without your knowledge.Anti-virus soft­ware and a fire­wall can pro­tect you from inad­ver­tently accep­ting such unwan­ted files. Anti-virus soft­ware scans inco­ming com­mu­ni­ca­tions for trou­ble­some files. Look for anti­vi­rus soft­ware that recog­ni­zes current viru­ses as well as older ones; that can effec­ti­vely reverse the damage; and that upda­tes automatically.A fire­wall helps make you invi­si­ble on the Inter­net and blocks all com­mu­ni­ca­tions from unautho­ri­zed sour­ces. It’s espe­cially impor­tant to run a fire­wall if you have a broad­band con­nec­tion. Ope­ra­ting sys­tems (like Win­dows or Linux) or brow­sers (like Inter­net Explo­rer or Nets­cape) also may offer free soft­ware “patches” to close holes in the sys­tem that hac­kers or phishers could exploit.
  • Don’t email per­so­nal or finan­cial infor­ma­tion. Email is not a secure method of trans­mit­ting per­so­nal infor­ma­tion. If you ini­tiate a tran­sac­tion and want to pro­vide your per­so­nal or finan­cial infor­ma­tion through an organization’s web­site, look for indi­ca­tors that the site is secure, like a lock icon on the browser’s sta­tus bar or a URL for a web­site that begins “https:” (the “s” stands for “secure”). Unfor­tu­na­tely, no indi­ca­tor is fool­proof; some phishers have for­ged secu­rity icons.
  • Review cre­dit card and bank account sta­te­ments as soon as you receive them to check for unautho­ri­zed char­ges. If your sta­te­ment is late by more than a cou­ple of days, call your cre­dit card com­pany or bank to con­firm your billing address and account balances.
  • Be cau­tious about ope­ning any attach­ment or down­loa­ding any files from emails you receive, regard­less of who sent them. These files can con­tain viru­ses or other soft­ware that can wea­ken your computer’s security.
  • For­ward spam that is phishing for infor­ma­tion to spam@uce.gov and to the com­pany, bank, or orga­ni­za­tion imper­so­na­ted in the phishing email. Most orga­ni­za­tions have infor­ma­tion on their web­si­tes about where to report problems.
  • If you believe you’ve been scam­med, file your com­plaint at ftc.gov, and then visit the FTC’s Iden­tity Theft web­site at www.consumer.gov/idtheft. Vic­tims of phishing can become vic­tims of iden­tity theft. While you can’t enti­rely con­trol whether you will become a vic­tim of iden­tity theft, you can take some steps to mini­mize your risk. If an iden­tity thief is ope­ning cre­dit accounts in your name, these new accounts are likely to show up on your cre­dit report. You may catch an inci­dent early if you order a free copy of your cre­dit report perio­di­cally from any of the three major cre­dit bureaus. See www.annualcreditreport.com for details on orde­ring a free annual cre­dit report.