Wednesday, May 18, 2005

It may be Spring, but anytime is Phishing season...

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Here is a timely e-mail reminding us to be careful with what we do in response to e-mails.  I took the test and scored 80%.  I don't feel that bad, the two I missed were legitimate and I dismissed them as a Phishing expedition.  Basically, I figure EVERYTHING like this is a Phishing scam.  To bad for legitimate businesses, but that is the way of the virtual world now-a-days...

As Sarge said on Hill Street Blues:  "Let's be careful out there."

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How smart are you when it comes to telling legitimate e-mail from a bogus phishing expedition? You might be surprised.

Recently, security firm Mailfrontier created a phishing test that offered 10 e-mails from businesses – some legit, some bogus. Readers were asked to determine which were which. According to Mailfrontier, only 52% of respondents get all the answers right – leading to the conclusion the phishers are growing more sophisticated.

To see where you stack up, take a new, trickier version of the test at: http://survey.mailfrontier.com/survey/quiztest.html

Meanwhile, here are some tips that’ll help you improve your score:

1. When an e-mail message arrives from a company you don’t do business with, delete it no matter how official it looks.

2. Check subject lines. Would Citibank ever send a legitimate e-mail with a subject like, "_Citibank_account_update ACT-NOW"?

3. Think about the way genuine businesses want to interact with you. Your bank wants you to access it through its Web site, not by sending you e-mail.

4. Read e-mails carefully. Phishers have grown much more sophisticated, but for many, English is a second language – so you’re more likely to find typographical errors or awkwardly phrased sentences.

5. Never enter personal information in a form that you access by clicking a link in an e-mail. Chances are, the form is run by a phishing operation, and you are giving up your data to an ID theft ring. Either call the company’s main switchboard (not a number you find in the e-mail) and ask for customer service, or visit the main Web site and click to customer service that way.

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