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Whats popular? | Tagged with keyloggers , identity theft , phishing
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - Almanac Vol. 55, No. 17Avoid Phishing E-mails: Here How
Phishing e-mails are the perfect storm.
- They are sophisticated and easy to fall for. Recent examples include commonly received warnings, such as “Your Mailbox is Over its Size Limit”; messages that seem to come from your real friends, especially in the form of greetings cards; and messages about major news events.
- They are frequent. The AntiPhishing Workgroup reported that crimeware-spreading URLs infecting PCs with password-stealing code rose 93 percent in the first quarter of 2008.
- And they are very dangerous. Some are dangerous because they ask for your personal information. Some are dangerous because a click on a link installs a keystroke logger that gets your personal information without needing to ask you for it. Either way, your risk of identity theft is significant.
How do you know what is a legitimate or illegitimate phishing attack?
- Get educated. One of the best sites we’ve seen for solid, beginner and advanced, quick and creative education is a site created by Carnegie Mellon University. Visit http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/ or search the web for “anti-phishing phil” and follow the link to CMU’s website. You will be smarter about what to avoid and why.
- Double check lists of known scams. There are several good and reliable sources for checking on whether a message is legitimate or not. Check out http://www.snopes.com.
- Ask a Penn Resource. You may always ask Penn’s Office of Information Security or your local support provider for advice when you are unsure of whether an e-mail is a scam.
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