Hopefully we all know what phishing is. For those who don't, wikipedia states that it "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." Basically people try to send you authentic looking emails to try to trick you in to giving up your bank user name and password. Phishing attacks have become extremely prevalent in the last few years. But today I realized that these attacks have reached a new level.
What made me realize this? Well I have received phishing emails in the past, but they were always for the large banking institutions and, for some reason, they all seemed to be obvious forgeries. But today I received convincing email from a local credit union, UCCU, linking to a website that was asking me to log in to my account. I quickly realized that this was a phishing attack. While I still realized this was fraudulent, it was the first time I received such an attack from a local bank. This means that those who who facilitate these attacks (are they called phishers?) are getting smarter. They are targeting members of a small bank in a small community.
This means that we need to be educating everyone about these attacks. Everyone needs to know that their bank will never ask for their login information. I would even suggest that they do not even click on links in their emails. Type the internet addresses on your own. As phishers are getting smarter, we need to further educate the internet population about this problem.
What made me realize this? Well I have received phishing emails in the past, but they were always for the large banking institutions and, for some reason, they all seemed to be obvious forgeries. But today I received convincing email from a local credit union, UCCU, linking to a website that was asking me to log in to my account. I quickly realized that this was a phishing attack. While I still realized this was fraudulent, it was the first time I received such an attack from a local bank. This means that those who who facilitate these attacks (are they called phishers?) are getting smarter. They are targeting members of a small bank in a small community.
This means that we need to be educating everyone about these attacks. Everyone needs to know that their bank will never ask for their login information. I would even suggest that they do not even click on links in their emails. Type the internet addresses on your own. As phishers are getting smarter, we need to further educate the internet population about this problem.
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