PHISHING SCAMS AND SOME ENTERTAINMENT

23 April 2008 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Samantha Merritt

Phishing. You're checking your e-mail; you get an unexpected e-mail apparently from your financial institution. You read something about updating your personal information. You click the link. You type in the information asked of you. Bam, just like that, you've been phished.

In computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Definition provided by Wikipedia.org

OnGuard Online Videos

Phishy Home


Phishy Office


Phishy Store

The PEFCU risk department recently discovered some entertaining and informative videos that illustrate some of the ways phishing can happen. The videos are found on a site called OnGuard Online (http://onguardonline.gov/phishing.html). The site provides practical tips from various government and information technology industry professionals to help protect you from Internet fraud. There are flash tutorials, a spyware tools database and security videos.

Learning about phishing is probably not on the top of your list of things to do, but these videos are worth a moment or two of your time. Click here, or go to http://onguardonline.gov/index.html, to see these videos. There are more available at the YouTube site for OnGuard and FTC videos.

If you suspect you have been a victim of phishing, file a complaint at ftc.gov quickly, and report this incident to the relevant financial institutions you believe could be affected. Phishing victims can also easily become identity theft victims. PEFCU recommends requesting a credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com and reading it over carefully.

Here are some links we suggest for researching phishing:

• OnGuard Online
• Wikipedia
• Anti-Phishing Working Group
• FTC.gov
• Fraud.org
• SonicWALL