"Phishing" is any fraudulent attempt to get you to hand out your personal information to people who shouldn't have it. MarvQuin offers eight savvy tips for protecting yourself from phishing scams. Read the entire article for the full scoop, but here's a quick rundown:
- Be immediately suspicious when an email message asking for personal information is particularly urgent, or particularly disappointing.
- Never click on links in any mail that you are the least bit suspicious of, especially if the mails asks for personal data. Call the company instead.
- Use only secure websites when providing personal and/or financial data (all modern browsers use a special padlock icon on the browser window to notify you that a site is secure).
- Look carefully at the URL of any site asking for personal information, to make sure it belongs to the organization you think is doing the asking.
- Use the phishing protection tools in your browser (if any are available).
- Look at your online accounts periodically to make sure nothing's amiss.
- Keep your browser updated.
- Report phishers -- there are several commercial and governmental organizations fighting phishing, and they have addresses set up to take reports of illegal activity.
Again, consult the article for full details. Good tips to keep in mind as you browse the web.
