Companies Forced to Fight Phishing
Phishing is the name given to a new scam on the Internet where the scammer poses as a legitimate business and tries to get you to give them confidential information. I have personally received many of them recently from (presumably) Citibank and Paypal. Both organizations have an address where you can report these scams.
"Trower's search illustrates the lengths that businesses are going to in order to stop a form of fraud that uses their good names to steal. A 1,200 percent increase in attacks since January has forced the companies not only to redouble their efforts, but to change the way they use the Internet to communicate with their customers, each other and law enforcement officials."
This article also says that, "A year ago, each attack against EarthLink generated about 20,000 customer support calls at an average cost of $127,000 per incident, Trower said. At the time, the company battled approximately three new attacks each week. "
There is an interesting test in the article that shows you ten different messages that you might receive and lets you vote on whether you think it is a scam or not. It is a good way to test your understanding of how to identify a scam.
The basic defense is to never click on a link in an email that you are not sure of. Any message from a business you recognize that asks you to click on a link is probably a fraud. A legitimate messge will usually ask you to log in to your account (in the normal way you would get access to your account!) to provide any information that the business needs.
Be wary of these scams! They do look tempting, and a mistake can be made very easily,and it can be costly!
"Trower's search illustrates the lengths that businesses are going to in order to stop a form of fraud that uses their good names to steal. A 1,200 percent increase in attacks since January has forced the companies not only to redouble their efforts, but to change the way they use the Internet to communicate with their customers, each other and law enforcement officials."
This article also says that, "A year ago, each attack against EarthLink generated about 20,000 customer support calls at an average cost of $127,000 per incident, Trower said. At the time, the company battled approximately three new attacks each week. "
There is an interesting test in the article that shows you ten different messages that you might receive and lets you vote on whether you think it is a scam or not. It is a good way to test your understanding of how to identify a scam.
The basic defense is to never click on a link in an email that you are not sure of. Any message from a business you recognize that asks you to click on a link is probably a fraud. A legitimate messge will usually ask you to log in to your account (in the normal way you would get access to your account!) to provide any information that the business needs.
Be wary of these scams! They do look tempting, and a mistake can be made very easily,and it can be costly!
posted by RGMyers at 1:27 AM
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