Phishing Season

”Phishing” (pronounced: fishing) describes a serious, sophisticated practice in which Internet con artists - using bogus e-mails and websites designed to look like those of legitimate companies, banks or government agencies - trick unwitting customers into divulging sensitive financial and personal information.

In a typical phishing scam, the perpetrator copies the webpage code from a well-known site (such as eBay, Citibank or AOL) and uses it to set up a replica page, complete with company logo, fonts, styles and links to mimic the real company webpages. He or she then uses spamming techniques to send a million or more e-mails with a single click. The e-mails advise Internet users that their billing information needs to be confirmed or updated because of a technical or security problem and directs them to click on a hyperlink to reach the official corporate or institutional website.

In actuality, the link sends them to the scammer’s look-alike page. Once there, the user is asked to provide credit card information, password, personal identification number, Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, and other closely guarded data. Armed with this information, the scammer can proceed to run up charges in the user’s name, empty bank accounts, apply for loans or new credit cards, and commit many other types of identity theft.

Gartner, Inc. (http://www4.gartner.com/Init), an information technology research firm, estimates that:

• More than 57 million Internet users in the United States have received some sort of e-mail related to a phishing scam
• Close to 2 million checking accounts have been exploited
• Annual losses associated with phishing exceed $2 billion

If you receive a possible phishing e-mail DO NOT respond to it. Send copies of the e-mail to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at uce@ftc.gove and to the Anti-Phishing Working Group at reportphishing@antiphishing.org. Also send a copy of the e-mail to the “abuse” e-mail address at the company that is being spoofed (e.g., spoof@ebay.com). 

If you have already disclosed your personal information to a possible phishing e-mail or website, immediately file an online complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (a joint project of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center) at http://www.ic3.gov. Also go to the FTC’s identity theft website at http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft and follow the directions there for reporting information to credit bureaus, credit card companies, and law enforcement.