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What Is Phishing?
Phishing refers to the practice of using bait email to lure victims to a copy of an existing legitimate Web page to trick users into providing sensitive personal information. Responding to phishing emails put your accounts at risk. Never provide personal information, specifically your debit card number and PIN, to any web site you arrived at from a link in an email. Always enter the URL for the web site directly into your web browser.
Large numbers of recipients are being "spammed," without actual knowledge of their banking affiliation. They request and collect email addresses and other confidential information like financial account numbers, IDs and passwords. The cyber-criminals have copied the logos and the content styles of widely known and respected financial institutions in an attempt to elicit a response from a recipient who may or may not be a customer of that financial institution.
What is Vishing?
Vishing is the criminal practice of using social engineering and Voice over IP (VoIP) to gain access to private personal and financial information from the public for the purpose of financial reward. The term is a combination of "voice" and phishing. Vishing exploits the public's trust in landline telephone services, which have traditionally terminated in physical locations which are known to the telephone company, and associated with a bill-payer. The victim is often unaware that VoIP allows for caller ID spoofing, inexpensive, complex automated systems and anonymity for the bill-payer. Vishing is typically used to steal credit card numbers or other information used in identity theft schemes from individuals.
Vishing is very hard for legal authorities to monitor or trace. To protect themselves, consumers are advised to be highly suspicious when receiving messages directing them to call and provide credit card or bank numbers. Rather than provide any information, the consumer is advised to contact their bank or credit card company directly to verify the validity of the message.
What is SMiShing?
SMiShing is a security attack in which the user is tricked into downloading a Trojan horse, virus or other malware onto his cellular phone or other mobile device. SMiShing is short for "SMS phishing."
How Cyber-Criminals Operate
To increase the number of responses, cyber-criminals often include upsetting or exciting statements in their emails, SMS text messages or voice messages. They want people to react immediately and respond with the desired information without thinking. To protect yourself, take the time to examine the claims made in the email text message or phone message. If you receive an email, text message or phone message requesting sensitive information, check its authenticity by contacting the company that appears to be the originator of the message.
Protect Your Personal Information
Federal law now allows everyone to get one free copy of their credit report every year from the three primary agencies. To obtain your free report, visit http://www.annualcreditreport.com. You should review your credit report regularly to ensure no one has opened a credit card in your name.
General Computer Security
• Don’t open attachments you are not expecting.
• Don’t follow links in emails.
• Keep your anti-virus software up-to-date. Anti-virus software needs frequent updates to guard against new viruses. Download the anti-virus updates as soon as you're notified that a download is available. Some antivirus programs offer an "auto-update" feature, where regular updates are made automatically for you.
• When you're not online, always disconnect from the Internet.
• Always back up the files on your computer.
• Install a personal firewall to help prevent unauthorized access to your home computer, especially if you connect to the Internet via a cable modem or a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem.
• Maintain current versions of your computer's operating system and Internet browsers.
The following programs, in addition to anti-virus software, can help protect your computer from ad-ware, spy-ware and other forms of potentially dangerous software. Additional information can be found on the sites linked below.
The following free downloadable shareware is available online:
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