Phishing = Fishing??

Hi, everyone! Does anyone of you know what the meaning of “Phishing” is? Oops! I don’t mean “fishing”. It is not the hobby where someone sitting at the river bank, waiting for the fish to eat the bait.However,it provides the similar meaning. Phishing simply means the fraudulent links created by perpetrators that lead their prey to a legitimate-looking website in order to steal their personal or private information as they enter the information required. These links are usually sent through e-mail or instant messaging.

Phishing is one of the biggest threats that an online user might experience nowadays. There are some examples of Phishing email that designed as it was delivered by well known and trusted websites such as e-bay and PayPal.

Here is one of the examples which was designed as it was sent from a famous E-commerce company, e-bay.

This is an e-mail sent to require the targeted users to re-enter their information by threatening the users that their account would be suspended and finally terminated if they do not re-enter their information. Some users might starts to be worry and follow the instructions to re-enter their information in the fake website and information will be stolen.

Other than companies online, banks have become a common path for phishers to gather information from the victims. As what we can see below, there are some perpetrators trying to lure the internet users for information regarding their ATM card as well as pin number. They can then transfer the funds to other account or use the information gathered for any other purposes. Users should be smart and always be alert when receive these emails to avoid becoming the victims.



Since we have found out that there are lots of phishing emails on the internet, preventions should be taken by the internet users like all of us here so as to keep track from the scam. There are some guidelines suggested in order for us to protect ourselves from not to be hooked by phishing scam.

First of all, we, as undergraduates of a quality university(UTAR) should be smart and have sufficient knowledge in not providing personal information freely online. As an internet user, we should be more cautious whenever there are pop-ups or emails from business or unknown persons that requires for personal information. Users should ignore and do not click, reply or downloads forms from those emails as email is not a secure method for transmission of personal information. If there is really a need for giving out personal information online, it is more rational for us to navigate the company’s website through search engine like yahoo or google.

Other than this, it is wise for us to install spam-filter, firewall, anti-virus or anti-spyware software that could protect our computers. It is basically a need for those friends out there who like to download online games, free movies or mp3. Why do we say so? This is because some of the scam emails contain software that could cause damages to our “beloved” computers. Some of the phishing emails can further detect our activities without out knowledge. Therefore, by having all the software mentioned above, the possibility for us to be spammed is lower. However, we should continuously update our software in order to ensure that they could help in blocking new virus and spyware. Apart of those mentioned above, this link shows other tips on preventing phishing. http://www.anti-phishing.info/avoid-phishing.html

So friends, after reading this blog, always be alert and try to protect yourselves from being so dump to be hooked by the phishers.