Online predators across the world are using phishing or fake emails to millions of internet users to get their user ids and passwords of the financial institution's websites and prompt the users to enter their user ids and passwords.
They prompt you to enter the information by telling you that your account has been locked, or there is an error in your account, or that an unauthorized activity has been notice in your account. Then they prompt you to enter user id and password to check the account details. At same time they also prompt the users to change their passwords. The users are cheated into entering the details at a fraudulent site without realizing that the information provided by them may make them the victims of phishing scams or fraud.
Online predators collect the financial information of the people in this manner and use it to steal money from accounts, make financial transactions from your accounts, or even to withdraw cash from your accounts. At that time, hacker also creates identical accounts with the information that you feed in the fraudulent sites and they become the owners of your bank accounts or credit cards. The hacker may also indulge in identity theft using the information provided by you and create scams that portray you as the main mastermind.
To protection against such fraudulent activities, you must collect all the information about anti-phishing measures and take necessary actions. To ensure phishing protection, you must never click a link that is provided in the email. This is the foremost and most important rule that every user must be aware of and follow it religiously.
The very first way is to check for email address of the sender. If the email is fake, the email address will appear as (mailto:hacker@hackermail.net).
hacker@hackermail.net, even if the subject line of the line of the email mentions the name of some financial institution. Another way to detect the fraudulent email is to check for the website address of the link provided. In case of a fraud, the website address would be different from what is mentioned in the link provided. To check for this, you must manually enter the link name in the browser tab or search for the name in one of the search engines. Finally, if you happen to click the link inside the email, the address that appears on the browser will be different than given in the link.
- Premal H Patel
