Do you know what phishing is ?
2005-11-29 23:43:45
In computing, phishing is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for such information in a seemingly official electronic notification or message (most often an email, instant message, or cloneed websites). It is a form of social engineering attack. According to this InternetNews article, only 4% of internet users who have taken the MailFrontier Phishing IQ test have passed it with 100%. An important issue that has gotten more prevalent and sophisticated in the past several years.The key to avoid being phished is to check the URL of your webbrowser everytime you are logging in something. i.e paypal, make sure the URL ends with paypal.com. Doesnt matter what the front of the url is i.e logginginscript.paypal.com/ as long as it ends with [theofficialcompany].com/ you're safe. You are not safe if its the other way around. eg. paypal.loginscript.com or paypal.hackerworld.com or just an ip address http://211.248.156.177/paypal/cgi-bin/loginscript.cgi. By that it means that you are logging in loginscript.com instead of paypal.com. Be aware !
Rule of thumb is to check the URL everytime you login.