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As Economy Falters, Phishing and Spam E-Mail Scams Surge

by Tim Stevens on October 9, 2008 at 11:35 AM

As Economy Falters, Phishing and Spam Scams Surge
These are scary times for those with retirement savings tied to the markets. As things plunge faster and further than they have in years, many are crying recession and worse, while some others are seeing a boom. Many of those in the latter group are scammers, preying on people looking for answers to make a quick buck. Phishing attacks are surging now as people are being a little more emotional in their online banking habits, and a little less careful.

Phishing attacks -- essentially fake e-mails from familiar banks and other institutions masquerading as the real thing -- are on the rise, preying on people's panic about potential bank failures to get them to click through and enter their log-in details. Recent scam e-mails purporting to come from banks such as Chase and Washington Mutual are currently making the rounds.

Modern browsers like Firefox 3.0 and Internet Explorer 8 will warn you when you hit such bogus sites, but you can never be too careful. As always: Be wary of where you click, and if you're unsure that a given site is legit type in the URL to your bank by hand and log in from there. Think twice before reacting to some provocative e-mail subject line that's somehow related to protecting your financial assets, since those are precisely the sorts of phrases that are being used as bait by evildoing phishers. It's all too easy to fall prey to these tricks, so better to be safe than sorry. [From: USA Today]

Related Link:

12 Most Dangerous E-Mails

Tags: e-mail scams, E-mailScams, fraud, online banking, OnlineBanking, phishing, safety, scam, security

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