What is Phishing?

Don’t worry, my spelling hasn’t gone haywire again, this really is “phishing” with a “ph” and has nothing to do with fishing lines, nets and tins of maggots.  This type of fishing still has bait, but this time it’s of the electronic variety. Intrigued? Well read on then.

Malware, Phishing and Security Risks

Whenever you’re downtown and you need some cash what do you do? You go to the ATM of course. Well, we’re all pretty clued up about the security measures needed there aren’t we, we generally check to make sure that nobody is standing too close to be able to see the PIN number, in fact, the first thing we check is that it isn’t a fake ATM machine. Well, these days many of us perform our banking transactions online and the security risk is remarkably similar, except this is because of malware and phishing. These organizations are doing all they can to steal your personal information so that they can hijack your computer and your accounts.

What are phishing and malware attacks?

* Phishing- is when someone is pretending to be someone or something else – a fake website trying to find out all of your personal information. They call it “phishing” because, just like in “fishing”, a bait is thrown out (electronically) and then they sit back and wait for the bite. Typically a phishing scam will start off with an email which looks like it is from your bank or some other service which you regularly use, it will probably look very official and say something like “please update your banking information”. Then you’ll be linked to a website which looks identical to your banks but it isn’t. If you log in to this website you could very easily give these baddies your account numbers, passwords, credit card numbers and goodness knows what else.

* Malware - is a little different but just as dangerous, in fact, in many ways it’s more so because you can become a victim of malware without knowing anything at all about it. You might be innocently asked to download some anti-virus software, for example, which actually contains the virus. Some web pages install software to your computer without asking or you even knowing about it. This malware can very quickly steal the passwords and credit card numbers from your computer, and also cause other damage and harm. The problem with malware is that once it’s got a hold on your computer it can be so difficult to get rid of it. Very often you don’t even know that it’s there until the damage is done.

One of the best defences against malware and phishing attacks is to use a modern, up-to-date web browsers. These will analyze any web pages for suspicious signs of malware and send you an alert if they find any.

Banks and other institutions do spend millions in trying to protect their customers from these online threats, but at the end of the day it’s down to you. Never ever trust an email which is asking for your personal details, and if you have any suspicions at all the best idea is to contact your bank or whoever the website is supposed to represent to check the authenticity.