Expensive Financial Traps: 'Spoofing,' 'Phishing,' and 'Link Altering'
"Spoofing" or "phishing" scams attempt to mislead internet users into believing they are getting e-mail from a specific, trusted source or are securely linked to a trustworthy web site, when this is far from the reality.
Spoofing is most commonly used to persuade people to provide personal or financial information, allowing the perpetrators to perpetrate credit card/bank fraud or other types of identity theft.
The header of an e-mail looks to come from someone or somewhere other than the true sender in "email spoofing." Spam senders frequently employ email spoofing to get recipients to open and reply to their messages.
A method known as "IP spoofing" is used to obtain unwanted access to computers. In this case, the unethical intruder delivers a message to a computer with an IP address that indicates the communication is from a reliable source.
The changing of a return internet address of a web page that is sent to a customer in order to redirect the receiver to a hacker's site rather than the genuine one is known as "link alteration." This is done by putting the hacker's IP address before the actual address in an e-mail with a request to return to the original site. If an unwary person receives a faked e-mail and clicks on "click here to update" account information, for example, and is sent to a site that looks just like a commercial site like EBay or PayPal, there's a considerable possibility the person will input personal and/or credit information. That's just what the hacker is hoping for
How to Defend Yourself
- If you need to update your information online, use the same steps as previously, or open a new browser window and enter in the real company's website URL.
- If the address of a website is unfamiliar, it is unlikely to be genuine. Only utilise the address you've already used, or better yet, start with the default homepage. Most businesses demand that you check in to a secure site. Look for a lock icon at the bottom of your browser and the letters "https" in front of the website URL.
- Exercise great caution if you receive an unsolicited e-mail that asks for personal financial or identification information, such as your Social Security number, passwords, or other identifiers, either directly or through a web site.
- Make a note of the web site's header address. The majority of genuine websites will have a short internet address that includes the company name followed by ".com" or ".org." Spoof sites are more likely to feature a header with an unusually lengthy string of characters, with the actual business name appearing somewhere in the string, or not at all.
- If you have any worries about the legitimacy of an e-mail or a website, contact the genuine firm immediately. Make a copy of the URL address of the shady website and email it to the real company, asking if the request is genuine.
- Always notify your ISP if you receive a fake or questionable e-mail.
- Finally, if you've been a victim, go to http://www.ic3.gov to make a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.