phishing ?

Question

I have an e-mail from Lloyds T.S.B. asking me to send in my details to update their records.Sounds a bit dodgy, I was told it's a phishing e-mail, apart from being dodgy what does phishing mean.
thank you

Answer 1

Very good answers here.... you can also forward a copy with full headers pasted at top to here:

[e-mail]

Anti Phishing Working Group Org
http://www.antiphishing.org/
Report Phishing: Report phishing emails, pharming sites and crimeware to the Anti-Phishing Working Group and help stop this insidious threat to e-commerce. Click "Report Phishing" link below for instructions.
What is Phishing and Pharming?
Phishing attacks use both social engineering and technical subterfuge to steal consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials. Social-engineering schemes use 'spoofed' e-mails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords and social security numbers. Hijacking brand names of banks, e-retailers and credit card companies, phishers often convince recipients to respond. Technical subterfuge schemes plant crimeware onto PCs to steal credentials directly, often using Trojan keylogger spyware. Pharming crimeware misdirects users to fraudulent sites or proxy servers, typically through DNS hijacking or poisoning.

MORE:

Microsoft: How to handle suspicious e-mail
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/email/phishingdosdonts.mspx

Answer 2

It's phishing. You have a prime example in your inbox. The link will take you to a website that looks like Lloyds but is actually put up by the criminals. They'll harvest your "details" and then drain your bank account. Now you know what phishing is.

I'm working on scripts that load those sites with bogus information. I've had some success. Hopefully that will hide the data from the hopeless rube that takes it seriously and gives their information.

No bank or any other business would EVER make such a request. Treat ALL of them as phishing attacks and just delete them.

Answer 3

"phishing" is when someone asks you for your personal information for nefarious (bad) reasons. Often times, they pretend to be someone they are not.

If you have an account with any website or business, etc., generally they will not send you these messages.

Even if you think they might have, DO NOT click the link in the email.

Open up your web browser, and go to the website of the company to check your account details and such.

They will try to fool you by masking the way the link looks, so it is really taking you to another site, and other such sneaky things.

Be really careful with who you give your personal information to on the internet, it could be just about anyone on the other end. That being said, don't be afraid to do business on the net, just be smart about it.

Answer 4

you're being "phished" once you're led to a pretend website, to illustrate, after typing the incorrect link. information superhighway Explorer 7 and Firefox the two have a anti-phishing function for consumer's risk-free practices. you're being hacked whilst a hacker has by some potential gained get entry to on your computing device via information superhighway, gained very own training, and became your computing device right into a zombie gadget that works to serve his/her desires. A Intrusion Prevention gadget (IPS), an put in firewall application, and a router firewall are sturdy approaches of keeping ur comp from those hackers.

Answer 5

Phishing is the cyber crime of falsely representing an official body such as a bank or other corporation to gain private log-in details or other personal information illegally from you.

It is normally done by presenting you with a fake website log-in screen that looks like the real corporate log-in screen, or via a fake email that encourages you to pass on the private information via email.

In both situations the social engineering trick of falsely pretending to be the legitimate operation is used.

To defend against this you should never respond to emails asking you to confirm details. To defend against bogus websites you should never follow links from your emails - instead you should manually type the email address in the browser and also keep your PC protected with an up-to-date AV. Otherwise legit web addresses can be redirected on your PC to fake ones without you knowing.

Answer 6

Be advised that no bank or financial institution will ever ask you for your personal information via e-mail. What you are dealing with is "Phishing". Do not give them any info and report them to the Federal Phishing site.

Answer 7

Comes from the analogy that internet scammers are using email bait to fish for passwords and financial data from the sea of internet users. Since hackers have a tendancy of replacing "f" with "ph", the term phishing was derived. The term has evolved over the years to include not only obtaining user account details but access to all personal and financial data.

Answer 8

Phishing Means That they steal your personal data such as:

*Address and Contact Details
*Identity
*Credit Card and Debit Card No's
*Your Chip and Pin Number

Answer 9

Phishing is an attempt to get you to give someone your personal information so that they can rip you off. If they have (for example) your Paypal name and password, then they can get into your financial information that you have there, if they have your bank account numbers and PIN they can empty your account, things like that.