Whats phishing?

Question

Tom on myspace posted something about that.... what the heck is that?

Answer 1

In general, phishing is a method to trick people into giving up important information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, etc.

Normally, they appear in the form of a legitimate looking email from reputable companies like your banking institution, eBay, PayPal, etc., that inform you of some problem or course of action being taken by the company. The email offers you a link to sign into the site and to provide the sensitive information.

When someone does this, the information being requested is sent to a third party who then uses the information to gain access to said accounts or to open new accounts.

The warning Tom sends out refers mostly to fraudulent sign in pages. When you click on a page, a sign-in page will often pop-up asking you to sign in again. If this is a phishing page, then your sign in information is sent to another party who can then sign in to your Myspace page.

If you ever receive a sign-in page after you've already signed in, then you need to retype myspace.com in your address bar to go back to the home page. Only then will you know if the request to sign in again was legitimate.

As for phishing in emails, you should never click on a link in an email. Always go to the site and sign in. The site will then tell you if there is anything you need to know concerning your account.

Answer 2

Phishing is an e-mail fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out legitimate-looking email in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients. Typically, the messages appear to come from well known and trustworthy Web sites. Web sites that are frequently spoofed by phishers include PayPal, eBay, MSN, Yahoo, BestBuy, and America Online. A phishing expedition, like the fishing expedition it's named for, is a speculative venture: the phisher puts the lure hoping to fool at least a few of the prey that encounter the bait.

Answer 3

is the act of tricking someone into giving them confidential information or tricking them into doing something that they normally wouldn’t do or shouldn’t do. For example: sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

Answer 4

fishy =8||

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing