Phishing Scams Phishing is an emerging security risk that allows hackers to use social engineering techniques to obtain personal information and passwords that could result in identity theft or fraud. You may have already seen these in Emails, and they can be quite convincing because these websites can look identical to your bank or credit card's site. This article will help you identify phishing scams and teach you techniques on how to be proactive in fighting them.

Email Phishing Spam is the leading delivery method for phishing Spam Emails can contain messages from top banks, such as Wachovia, and popular Internet payment companies like PayPal. While the text in these Emails will differ, they basically try to convince you to click a link within the Email that will take you to the fake Wachovia or Paypal site and have you login. Once you do this, they have your username and password and can easily access your bank account. To prevent falling victim to this scam, never click on hyperlinks within an Email. If you need to respond to an Email notification from your bank, close the Email, open your browser and type in your bank's URL in the address bar. This way, you know you are going to that website and not a spoofed address. Update Your Web Browser IE7 and Firefox 2 now contain anti-phishing tools to help prevent phishing scams. For instance, these browsers have lists of known phishing websites and continuously update their database. If your browser attempts to open a site on this phishing list, you will receive a warning from the browser. While these browsers will add an extra layer of protection against these malicious sites, they are only as reliable as their current database. To check a site instantly in IE7, you can go to Tools> phishing Filter and Check This Website. It will send the website to Microsoft to check it against their most current list of phishing websites. Check the Website's SSL Certificate In Firefox 2, you can right-click a secure website to check its authenticity. For example, if you go to PayPal.com and right-click the page, you can then click View Page Info, then under the Security tab you will see a View button. The next box reveals the SSL Certificate that was issued for that website. It should say that it was issued to www.paypal.com. Otherwise, it may be a scam. In Conclusion Phishing Scams prey on convenience. In this era of identity theft and other online scams, users need to take extra precautions to protect themselves. While ISPs, search engines and web browsers are becoming more proficient in protecting the end user, the responsibility ultimately falls on the Internet community.

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2. Rookkits Explained
3. Modify The Hosts File
4. Checking For Spyware
5. Erase Hard Drive
6. Computer Security Tips
7. Realistic Computer Security Threats
8. Email Worms
9. Secure You WiFi Network
10. Secure Passwords Policy
11. The Bittorrent Protocol, How it Works, and Legal Issues
12. The Kerberos Authentication Protocol
13. How to Remove Viruses and Spyware
14. Implementing Kerberos