'Have you been phished lately?' is a question most of us could be hearing a lot. Every time the topic of phishing comes up, the need to be vigilant comes to a top of mind state as well, only to recede to the background till the next time we are reminded. Sure, anti-spam filters help a lot and banish most of these unwanted emails to where they belong but there could just be a few steps you could take that would serve as a kind of armor against phishing scams. First off, all you need to remember is that your bank, your tax authorities or indeed any company, even if they are an online business, do not suffer from memory loss or dementia. They have your details and they will not ask you to send vital information like your username and password - most definitely not in an email. Sure, they might drive you crazy when you're trying desperately to get in touch with them but they do not want you to mail them your details - most emphatically not. Once you've set up the first hurdle, more in your mind than anywhere else, the rest comes easy. Even if your suspicion antenna is raised a teeny-weeny bit, go take a look to see whether the sender has sent the mail to anyone else too. You could find that they've sent it to a whole bunch of people and it's there for all to see. Now that's something no established business would do, not with the strict privacy policy that most of them follow. You would do well to check their email address too. Does it sound like the URL of the bank or the company that you think it's from? If it's a 'phisher', you'll probably find that it doesn't match. There could be words there that are spelt wrong or maybe an email address that sounds nothing like the company it is purported to come from at all. This is a good way to get the alarm bells in your mind ringing. For more review visit: www.dsbsforum.com
Good post A great way to avoid any phishing is to always manually enter the url of the service - paypal, adsense whatever, or use a bookmark. Following email posts is particularly dangerous as the real url address could be hidden, ifthe email is in html format
I see that I always type the url in the address bar and never click any suspicious link. If any page has to be frequently visited, I will bookmark it.