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Don't be reeled in by holiday phishing

Posted 8 December 2006 at 5:12PM by Alexa Williamson in Internet security

I can tell it's the Christmas season again in the online world because I've been getting more 'phishing' emails than usual in my inbox.

What is phishing, you may ask? The term may not be familiar, but if you use eBay, Paypal or do your banking online, you've probably encountered it. These are emails that say: 'Dear Ebay member, there is a problem with your account. Please log in now to fix it or we will cancel your account.' The fake banking emails say: 'Dear customer' and then warn you that there are security issues with your account.

Both types of email provide a link to a phony website where the scammers then ask you to provide personal information such as credit card numbers and account usernames and passwords. They are then used to commit fraud.

These scams are prevalent at this time of year. However, you can take steps to avoid your customers or yourself being the victim of a phishing scam.

Help your customers by:

1. Stating your communications policies clearly on your website and regularly in emails
2. Making it a policy that you never ask for personal information over email and that you will always address customers by their full name
3. Alerting customers as soon as possible if you find that your business is being used in a phishing scam - both on your website and via email

Help yourself by:
1. Never providing personal information to a business via email
2. Only amending personal information at a business' official website. You should type their official site address into your web browser and then go to the relevant area. Do not click on links in an email or copy them into web browser
3. Telephoning the business via an official customer service number to provide information
4. Using software such as Microsoft's Phishing Filter, which will flag up suspicious sites

For further reading on phishing, visit About.com and Microsoft.com.

Tags: avoid email scams, email scams, Phishing

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