Internet Safety and precautions.

Internet fraud, phishing, and indentity theft are prime example of why consumers should be wary with their information.

What could someone do with your information over the internet? How can someone steal your information when you have not given it out and how can the damage be reversed.

Today alot of frauders are using sophisticated yet simple ways to steal any information they can. They I'll talk about today has to do with phishing. Simple reason is that I was a victim of a phishing attack and how I was lucky that I did not do more damage to myself.

This is what wikipedia had to say about phishing:

Wikipedia:In computing, phishing is a criminal activity where phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

So they are able to copy a websites webpage and fool people into thinking they are that company.

My attack had to do with Ebay and Paypal. At that time I was using Ebay alot to buy items from my childhood. One day I received an e-mail explaining that since I've not used Paypal for awhile I needed to update my information. I clicked on the phished site and started to put in my information. It asked me for my name, CC number, pin # and the 3 security digits in the back.

A little alarm went off in my head and I did not put in my pin# or social security information it asked of me. The credit card company called me later on that week and asked if I was in Romania. What!? And they informed me that someone in Romania was trying to withdraw $5,000. Luckily I only had 1.85. From that day foward I realised to check the address in in the address bar.

Here are examples of phished sites:

The yahoo address starts off as a geocities website. If it doesn't have www.yahoo.com at the beginning be very wary and retype the address in. Retyping the address gives you the correct website.