Protect Yourself from Phishing and Other e-Scams

by Peter Harris, Monster.ca

Recently, con artists have been trying to impersonate legitimate companies in an attempt to gain sensitive information from unsuspecting victims. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Phishing is a scam conducted by sending out fraudulent emails in an attempt to gather private personal information or to steal identities. This is also known as "brand spoofing" because the false emails are created to resemble communications from legitimate companies and websites.

The term phishing comes from the fact that because these emails look like messages from known sources, they tempt the receiver to "take the bait." Scam artists will send millions of emails out to indiscriminate addresses knowing that some will reach targets who are actually clients of the company they are spoofing. Unfortunately they also know that some of those unsuspecting clients will "bite."

Recently, many major companies have been spoofed (or imitated) in these types of frauds. Favourites of these online scammers include banks, credit card companies, websites such as PayPal and eBay, and even career sites like Monster.

The fraudulent emails usually attempt to falsely gain such information as account passwords or credit card numbers. Sometimes they may even entice users to install software on their personal computers.

Keep in mind that it is relatively easy for someone to change the display of the "from" name or email address information in an email message. Therefore do not assume that an email is legitimate just because the message appears to be from a company you trust.

Ways to protect yourself:

• Use antivirus software and a firewall, and update them regularly.
  
  
• Don’t send personal or financial information by email.
  
  
• If you receive an email or pop-up message that asks you for sensitive or financial information, do not reply. Don’t click on any hyperlinks in such messages.
  
  
• Watch out for words spelled incorrectly in emails purportedly from major companies.
  
  
• Notice how this link says http://www.monster.ca, but it actually points to a different page. Phishers will often use similar techniques to entice users to click on their links. Watch to see where links actually go before clicking. (Your browser should preview the destination at the bottom left.)
  
  
• Always be careful when opening attachments or downloading files from websites and emails.

For more information, please visit the following websites prepared by the RCMP for your protection.

http://www.phonebusters.com/english/recognizeit_phishingemails.html

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams/phishing_e.htm