How to Protect Yourself from Phishing Scams
by Frank Jovine on 11/02/2009 in Scams & Hoaxes, Security
Many websites and blogs use Adsense and other advertising portals to publish products and services in order to earn money. However, many people are not as reluctant to click on these ads, due to the ongoing Phishing scams that are becoming more popular than ever.
What’s Phishing?
Phishing refers to an attempt to collect usernames, passwords, and credit card data by posing as a legitimate, trusted party. Often the deception involves using e-mail sent from a trusted address.
How do you know what Ad is safe?
First, know the source, like a brand name you know about and trust. In many cases these Phishing scams can masquerade any ad to look like the real deal. In order to protect yourself further, I recommend downloading the free WOT (Web of Trust) add-on for Firefox and/or IE. WOT is a free Internet security add-on that will proactively keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites.
Fake Antivirus Software Problem
Rogue antivirus products are among the latest Phishing tactics to appear on the internet. These tactics are quite convincing. They bear names like Antivirus 2009, AntiMalware 2010, and AntiSpyware 2009. What convinces the user most is the look and feel of these programs. They have similar interfaces just like the real deal. These fake antivirus products are showing up in search results with their own targeted keywords. The publishers of these rogue programs also have fake reviews recommending the product. If you would like to know more information on fake antivirus programs, visit our Security Category.
The holiday season is near and it’s also the time for more scams.
Surf safely all!
BunnygotBlog
Nov 2nd, 2009
Phishing scams are big on some of the social sites, like MySpace. It is too bad that we have to deal with this.Pretty scary.
Even having 250+ ways of having your password saved there are still ways thieves can get to you.
Thanks for the warning, Frank,you rock!
Frank J
Nov 2nd, 2009
Bunny,
It’s going to get worse as we approach the holiday season, trust me, it happened last year.
Michael Aulia
Nov 6th, 2009
Yeah recently I’ve received a few facebook scams..1 actually looked very real and official (with Facebook template and all that)
Imagine how many people will fall under this!
Frank J
Nov 6th, 2009
Michael,
You have to just be smart when you do anything on the internet. It’s unfortunate that many people get scammed.
Mathdelane
Nov 2nd, 2009
I’ve had my fair share of experience here and have shared some tips as well on this post:
http://softwarecritics.info/malware/gizmodo-scareware-fiasco-and-my-two-cents/
Frank J
Nov 2nd, 2009
Mathdelane,
I have published so many articles on this that you can read in our Security Category.
Ben
Nov 2nd, 2009
With the WOT Community Trust Network, hopefully people will eventually stop buying from websites as often that don’t have the CTN seal.
Frank J
Nov 3rd, 2009
Ben,
I encourage people to download this add-on as a proactive way to avoid these malicious sites.
Tommy
Nov 3rd, 2009
phishing is sucks they are worse than spammer
Freelance Writing
Nov 3rd, 2009
I am really afraid of this threat… It’s very alarmning…
Frank J
Nov 3rd, 2009
Just download the WOT add-on and you can make surfing much safer.
Freelance Writing
Nov 5th, 2009
Is it really safe? ok.. I’ll try to download that one.
sticker printing
Nov 3rd, 2009
I never heard about this, i have to Google about phishing word as i only have seen this word written but never tried to get involved in it but its your post who inspired me to know more about this and also to protect myself from online scams.
Frank J
Nov 3rd, 2009
It’s ongoing problem and it will get even worse when we approach the holiday season.