Phishing scams (What are they and how to safeguard you amongst them)

Today in this field of technical advancement much of the work which required more attention and effort in earlier days are solved in a much easier and convenient ways and much of this credit goes to the growing knowledge about internet. For example previously when there was no internet banking facility we had to spend a lot of time by physically going to the bank for each and every minute transaction, so a lot of time got wasted but with the introduction of internet banking we no longer need to visit the bank and stand in a queue for each transaction, as much of it can be done by sitting in front of the internet which is much efficient and time-saving. Apart from internet banking facilities a lot of other sectors which implemented online transactions include mutual fund investment and management, credit card management etc. But as we all know there are merits and demerits for each service, these efficient internet transactions are also subjected to some serious demits and among them the most serious being Phishing scams.

What are Phishing scams?

We all know that most of the online transactions communicate with the users through emails. This fact has been used by Phishing scam experts to to cause some serious abnormalities in our accounts. Most of the online sites like PayPal, EBay, online banking sites, mutual funds etc send us emails to communicate transaction details. Hackers send fake emails in the name of such online companies and they design those emails in such a way that a person may get easily duped and as a result that person gets subjected to some malicious activity which may lead to serious economic loss to the victim. Usually these emails contain a link and ask the user to click that link by giving some fake excuse. This link takes the user to a fake online site which looks exactly the same as the original site and the security symbols like the verify sign etc are also duplicated to make the site look exactly the same as the original one. Then they ask the user to login, and once the user logs in with the username and password, it gets saved with them and then those hackers use these data to alter the users account like transferring money into another third partly without letting the original owner knowing about it. Thus any person can easily become the victim of such Phishing scams.

Things to be taken into account to prevent Phishing scams

1. First we should shop responding to emails without properly checking its authenticity.
2. When we move to a online transaction site we should check whether the name starts with https or not here‘s’ stands for secured given by WWW, if it is there then only we should proceed further else not.
3. Also one should check for the standard security symbols in the site like verify sign etc before entering any personal information.