Phishing
Joe Brydges passed this on to me. I have gotten the Paypal emai referred to.
In the past several days, we have received more viruses, and 'phishing' emails, than we have in the past several months, over 100 a day. There are two kinds: One type claims to be from Chase Bank, and the other type is Paypal Account Suspension notices.
Phishing refers to fake / fraudulent requests for account information, with messages that look just like the real thing. Clicking on the links in those messages takes the viewer to a website that also looks like the real thing. This fake website's only purpose is to trick the visitor into entering their account information, which is then used to drain the visitor's bank, Paypal, etc., account in short order.
A new trick that virus writers are using is to not actually send the virus itself, but only send a fraudulent message containing something that effectively encourages the recipient to 'visit this website, and install this new bank security software'. The virus is hosted on the hacked / compromised web servers of companies who do not know that this has been done to their web server(s).
Should you get a message from your bank, Paypal, credit card company, etc., do not click on the links within those messages, but open a new Internet Explorer window, and type the company's web site name in manually, instead. Though the link addresses given are legitimate, they are actually formatted to go to a different address.
If you should by chance see one of these, especially at home, do not click on the links contained within them. Anything that asks for account information will more than probably be fraudulent, just delete it. Credit card companies all place toll-free phone numbers on the backs of their cards, in you ever have a question about an email message from the card provider, call that number first.
In the past several days, we have received more viruses, and 'phishing' emails, than we have in the past several months, over 100 a day. There are two kinds: One type claims to be from Chase Bank, and the other type is Paypal Account Suspension notices.
Phishing refers to fake / fraudulent requests for account information, with messages that look just like the real thing. Clicking on the links in those messages takes the viewer to a website that also looks like the real thing. This fake website's only purpose is to trick the visitor into entering their account information, which is then used to drain the visitor's bank, Paypal, etc., account in short order.
A new trick that virus writers are using is to not actually send the virus itself, but only send a fraudulent message containing something that effectively encourages the recipient to 'visit this website, and install this new bank security software'. The virus is hosted on the hacked / compromised web servers of companies who do not know that this has been done to their web server(s).
Should you get a message from your bank, Paypal, credit card company, etc., do not click on the links within those messages, but open a new Internet Explorer window, and type the company's web site name in manually, instead. Though the link addresses given are legitimate, they are actually formatted to go to a different address.
If you should by chance see one of these, especially at home, do not click on the links contained within them. Anything that asks for account information will more than probably be fraudulent, just delete it. Credit card companies all place toll-free phone numbers on the backs of their cards, in you ever have a question about an email message from the card provider, call that number first.
posted by M Clark at 5/19/2008 10:33:00 AM
1 Comments:
In some instances, even running your cursor over hypertext in phishing or suspicious email may cause one to get a virus. Avoiding the possibility of this happening is done by right-clicking and looking at Properties, which permits the email to be previewed in Outloox Express without actually opening it.
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