Phishing: Examples & its prevention methods

What is phishing?

Phishing also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on ‘fishing’, the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.

Phishing is an attempt to criminally & fraudulently acquired sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords & credit card details by fraud as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is carried out by e-mail, ebay, paypal, bestbuy, msn, yahoo, Citibank, AOL & etc. It is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users.

Example of phishing from e-mail:

Example of phishing from update credit card information:

Example of phishing that message from ebay member:


Example of phishing from yahoo!:

Example of phishing from Citibank:

The sender address looks like Citibank and the link appears to lead to Citibank's website. If you click on the link, you get a site that looks like a genuine Citibank website.

How to spot phishing scams:

1) Never reply to e-mail message that request your personal information.
2) Don’t click links in suspicious e-mail, the link might not be trustworthy.
3) Use the strong or different password for each of your accounts & change them frequently.
4) Don’t send personal information in regular e-mail messages.
5) Do the business only with companies you know & trust.
6) Help protect your PC, keep your PC updated & use antivirus software.
7) Monitor your transaction, using just one credit card for online purchases makes it easier to track your transactions.
8) Use credit cards for transactions on the internet instead of debit cards to avoid the big credit limit from your bank account.

Let’s all work together to prevent phishing scams. If you receive a suspicious e-mail, please report it. You can send it to the US Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov or you can just click the ‘report as junk’ button on your e-mail program.