You will probably ask yourself what is Phishing? This term has been widely used for past couple of years; Phishing refers to the objectionable action of intervening in one’s personals affairs and stealing valuable information by fraud. Usually associated with web-based fraud, and includes stealing of access usernames, passwords, and other important personal information as credit card accounts etc.

The most common Phishing tactic is a fake email which directs you to a website you are already registered on and asks you to fill up all your personal data again, probably stating a problem with their system or the fact that you didn’t enter it correctly the first time. You are asked to enter all the information such as your social security number, credit card details, passwords and back account numbers, all the stuff you have previously given to the same organization.

A relatively new idea related with Phishing is phone Phishing, the basic phenomenon being the same, stealing information; recently there have been records of people getting phone calls from their respective banks and being asked to dial a number, upon dialing the users talk to a so-called bank employee who prompts them to tell him their personal information. The website and employee obviously being fake, steal all your precious information.

Phishing may be carried out through instant messaging, email and phone, the method being the same fake links. The idea of Phishing dates back to as long as 1996. The damages include failure of access to email accounts to significant financial losses.

Now a very important question arises, how do we cope with phishers? Awareness doesn’t quiet do the job as phishers send out millions of mails daily looking for potential targets. The most important is to NEVER trust an email or phone call asking you for any kind of your personal detail. Check for authenticated links and send your organization an email or phone them, to check for the validity of the link.

To keep in check phone phishers ask the employee for identification and give him a call back on a phone number listed on the company’s REAL home page or your credit card or banking account contract. This whole counter checking process is a bit time consuming, but it’s your personal information and you have to do whatever you can to keep it safe. If you want a faster counter checking technique, it might be a good idea to check out anti-Phishing software available in the market from Norton etcetera.
Phishing is a menace and nobody but you yourself can keep you and your information safe! See this post to get an idea about how damaging phishing can be to you.