By Bhawani Amit
The term "Phishing', relates to the method of capturing confidential
information over the internet, through fraudulent ways. In other words, the
fraudster tries to initiate the internet user in various ways to trick him and
acquire his personal information such as his user name, password, his bank
accounts personal identification numbers banking user name and password, credit
card number etc.
There is an increase use of electronic channels for payments but at the same
time there exist a security problem for banks in the form of phishing attempts.
The act of phishing mainly takes place by using emails which appear to be coming
from a trusted website source. Hence people who believe in such fake emails,
become easy victims when they start responding these fraudulent emails and
links.
One of my friends recently received an email claiming to be coming from his
bank's website and then was further informed that some unauthorized transaction
has taken place and hence he had to click on the link provided in this email
which will finally take him to the website page of the concerned bank.
Once he log's into the system, using the user name and the password, it will
then verify him as a genuine user. The email looked very genuine but it failed
to convince him when he realized that the email was addressed to him as, "Dear
bank member". Instead of his name, he was addressed in a general way and this
made him suspicious about the whole email. My friend ignored this email and
deleted it from his inbox. Thus he was saved. If he would try to respond to the
email, he would be in a terrible mess.
So, If you receive an email that seem to be from your bank and diverts you
to the banking website and tempts you to login into the system in order to
activate yourself or verify yourself etc. in such a case, see that you ignore
such email instructions.
No banks will ask for a user name and password details. You must also never
try to give your credit or debit card numbers in response to any emails that you
may receive. Never try to cut and paste the links in order to reach a particular
banking website.
You must always have the habit of manually typing the URL of the banking
website so that you play safe. You must delete all suspicious emails and
attachments without opening them. In case you feel that by mistakes you have
followed a link within the suspicious email, you must then immediately call up
the bank and notify them to disable your online banking account and block all
payments of credit card for the time being. You must also change your user name
and password.
Banks have their own security system. They use the 128 bit Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) encryption technology to encrypt the information you send online.
This is mainly done to safe guard the exchanged information between the computer
and the bank's web site, during a transaction.
Banks have their own security levels to prevent unauthorized access to the
banks servers and thus preventing hackers from being successful in their illegal
activities. Certain banks have their own methods of safeguarding the customer's
bank account. Some banks will not entertain any further access to the concerned
customer's account, after having wrongly typed his password for three
consecutive times. The actual user will then have to contact the bank and get it
reactivated after proper verification of the customer.
About the Author: Amit Bhawani writes different Guides on
Email Phishing Scams and also offers professional advice on different
Computer Security related topics at amitbhawani.com which can help you in
keeping your computer safe.