The Tech Bros

Looks Can Be Deceiving

I have seen and heard way too many stories about people who get scammed out of their personal information and thousands of dollars due to emails that looked legit, but were not. As the founder of The Tech Bros, I feel that it is my duty to inform the readers, and keep them safe in the tech world around them.

Have you ever gotten an email from your bank, mortgage company, or a government organization that required you to click on a link and fill out your personal information on the the page you were brought to? I hope not. This is one of the most common email scams on the internet. In this article I am going to explain why this is so dangerous, and what you can do to avoid getting your information stolen.

So, you open the email and it has a header from your your bank, and looks exactly like a normal email that they would send you, right? When you read through the email, you notice that it asks you to submit some information to them, and you can just go to the form by clicking on link provided in the email. You don’t think anything about it and you click on the link, and submit your information. I mean, what harm can be done from that? Your bank sent you an email saying that you need to go and confirm some personal information for their records. This is the part where looks are deceiving. That email that was sent to you may look extremely legit, but in reality your bank did not send it, and that link in your email was not to their site. This common form of email scams is called Phishing. Yes, it sounds just like the word "fishing".

When you click on the link, it brings you to a phishing site, so that when you type in your personal information, it gets sent to the hacker who set up the site. The hacker sets out his line and bait, hoping that you’ll fall for it and bite the hook. By the time you realize what just happened, there is nothing you can do about it, because it is way too late. Hence the term "Phishing". In short, you were robbed by someone sitting at a computer half way across the world.

So now that you know how Phishing works, i’m going to explain what you can do to keep your private information private. If you do receive an email from your bank, mortgage company, government orginization, etc. and it asks you to click on the link and submit personal information, their are a couple of things that you can do. One is that you can open a new browser and type in the URL of the site yourself, and login that way. The other way is that you can call them yourself with the phone number that you have on file, and ask them if that is a legit email. DO NOT ever call the number provided in the email, because if the email is fraudulent, then the phone number probably is too. Customer service will be able to tell you over the phone if they did send that email. If they did not send it, they now know that someone is out their trying to catch their customers off guard, and they can take steps to make banking with them more secure. Companies are always thankful when they receive reports that there are Phishing sites identical to theirs, because the bank doesn’t know anything about the emails, and therefore cannot do anything about it.

I’ve talked before about knowing your enemy in my series on eliminating Spyware. however, know matter what you do online, their are always dangers, and you always have to know your enemy in order to protect yourself, and your family. The most important thing is education. You must constantly keep educating yourself and other by sharing the information that you know. Not everyone in the world is going to read this article, that’s why you need to share what you learn with everyone you know.

Posted in Security/Safety