Podcast: Symantec exec on how to avoid being a phishing victim
Phishing attacks have been around for a while and you might think that most people are savvy enough to avoid them. But, as CNET's Elinor Mills discovered, even FBI Director Robert Mueller finds it hard to distinguish a rogue phishing site from a legitimate bank website.
Symantec Internet safety adviser, Marian Merritt
(Credit: Symantec)This week there have been two major phishing stories. One involved e-mail account names and passwords of Hotmail and Gmail users being compromised through a phishing attack and posted on a website. The other (which Mills also wrote about in the story linked above) involved the indictment of 100 people in the U.S. and Egypt and the arrest of 33 more people in the U.S. as part of the largest cyber crime investigation in the U.S.
After writing my blog post on how to avoid becoming a phishing victim, I got a call from Symantec with an invitation to speak with its Internet safety adviser and blogger, Marian Merritt. Without overly pushing her company's products (which actually can help people avoid phishing scams), she talked about the recent arrests, the problem in general and gave some of her own tips on how to avoid being a victim.
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Larry Magid is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He's been writing and speaking about Internet safety since he wrote Internet safety guide "Child Safety on the Information Highway" in 1994. He is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, founder of SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com, and a board member of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Larry's technology analysis and commentary can be heard on CBS News and CBS affiliates, and read on CBSNews.com. He also writes a personal-tech column for the San Jose Mercury News. You can e-mail Larry or follow him on Twitter @larrymagid. 
Shouldn't that be a "rogue" phishing site? However, it works either way with rouge being a red and that color representing danger. :)
As I said rouge does work when you associate the color red with danger.
I almost got phished a few months ago, because it looked exactly like am email from my banks. Fortunately I notice that the email came in on an account that is not the one I use for online banking. I reported it of course, I report them all. What really cracks me up are the phishing attempts for banks that I do not use.
- by setjeff15081947 October 8, 2009 11:30 AM PDT
- Got one just about 2-hours ago. It was amateurishly designed, looking nothing like the legitimate ones I normally get, and there was one additional tip-off. Wrong E-mail account guys; and I would not get an alert on that type of account.
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(4 Comments)I'm sure I'll get more professionally designed ones. Anti-Everything software renewed and up-to-date; now, it's up to my vigilance.
This 21st Century is exhausting.