Phishing and Identity Theft
Phishing and Identity Theft Breakdown
Phishing sure isn’t as fun as fishing. For fans of fishing, it’s an annoyance that such a heinous and frustrating crime has hi-jacked the phonetics of such a wonderful pastime. Regardless, to best understand phishing, the ready recollection of sport fishing presents a perfect visual aid.
Phishing is a fraudulent, computer-based, Internet activity that “fishes” for information from unsuspecting individuals. This Internet phishing may come in the form of an email, a sweepstakes scam, an instant message from a friend whose account has been hacked, or even a website posing as a legitimate source of information or claiming to offer a professional service. Many individuals who nibble at the bait of these lures, such as “Visit this site to claim your prize,” become victims of phishing attacks. Unfortunately, because they’ve fallen victim to a phishing attack, they may easily fall victim to identity theft.
Phishing and Identity Theft – Crimes of the 21st Century
A hundred years ago, most criminals had faces. It only makes sense that with the advent of the information age, organized crime would boom, and criminals would become harder to track, trace, arrest and eventually prosecute for fraudulent activity. This is the reason why phishing and identity theft are so prominent in contemporary times. There is limited interaction with the prey, and the interaction taking place is of a faceless nature.
Phishing attacks most commonly come through email correspondence, as well as instant messages. Hackers and scam artists are using phishing techniques to gain access to online accounts—email, instant messenger, and social networking—then they are posing as the individual and casting lines and lures. The smallest amount of information may be all a phishing criminal needs to complete the puzzle to successfully steal your identity.
Access to an email account, might offer access to other online accounts, which might offer access to a social security number, credit card numbers or bank account numbers. You can see that falling victim to a phishing attack sets you up for a frustrating bout with identity theft.
Protecting Yourself From Phishing and Identity Theft
Fortunately, most web browsers offer phishing filters including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari—all the big ones. Anti-virus programs can also pick up phishing sites and redirect you from venturing to sites that are known to be phishing sites. However, when it comes to protecting yourself from phishing and identity theft, you need to educate yourself. Avoiding unknown email correspondence and instant messages is a great place to start, but being mindful of protecting your computer with every point and click is a necessity. You should also run an anti-virus program whenever your computer is connected to the Internet.