The term “Phishing’, relates to the method of capturing confidential information over the internet, through fraudulent ways. In other words, the fraudster tries to initiate the internet user in various ways to trick him and acquire his personal information such as his user name, password, his bank accounts personal identification numbers banking user name and password, credit card number etc. There is an increase use of electronic channels for payments but at the same time there exist a security problem for banks in the form of phishing attempts. The act of phishing mainly takes place by using emails which appear to be coming from a trusted website source. Hence people who believe in such fake emails, become easy victims when they start responding these fraudulent emails and links.

One of my friends recently received an email claiming to be coming from his bank’s website and then was further informed that some unauthorized transaction has taken place and hence he had to click on the link provided in this email which will finally take him to the website page of the concerned bank. Once he log’s into the system, using the user name and the password, it will then verify him as a genuine user. The email looked very genuine but it failed to convince him when he realized that the email was addressed to him as, “Dear bank member”. Instead of his name, he was addressed in a general way and this made him suspicious about the whole email. My friend ignored this email and deleted it from his inbox. Thus he was saved. If he would try to respond to the email, he would be in a terrible mess.

So, If you receive an email that seem to be from your bank and diverts you to the banking website and tempts you to login into the system in order to activate yourself or verify yourself etc. in such a case, see that you ignore such email instructions. No banks will ask for a user name and password details. You must also never try to give your credit or debit card numbers in response to any emails that you may receive. Never try to cut and paste the links in order to reach a particular banking website. You must always have the habit of manually typing the url of the banking website so that you play safe. You must delete all suspicious emails and attachments without opening them. In case you feel that by mistakes you have followed a link within the suspicious email, you must then immediately call up the bank and notify them to disable your online banking account and block all payments of credit card for the time being. You must also change your user name and password.

Banks have their own security system. They use the 128 bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology to encrypt the information you send online. This is mainly done to safe guard the exchanged information between the computer and the bank’s web site, during a transaction. Banks have their own security levels to prevent unauthorized access to the banks servers and thus preventing hackers from being successful in their illegal activities. Certain banks have their own methods of safeguarding the customer’s bank account. Some banks will not entertain any further access to the concerned customer’s account, after having wrongly typed his password for three consecutive times. The actual user will then have to contact the bank and get it reactivated after proper verification of the customer.

Author Bio: Amit Bhawani writes different Guides on Email Phishing Scams and also offers professional advice on different Computer Security related topics at amitbhawani.com which can help you in keeping your computer safe.

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: phishing email,email phishing protection,phishing protection tips,phishing protection,credit card