What is Phishing?

Phishing is when a criminal sends an email that they forge to look like a trusted company like your bank. They make up some story and ask you to clink a link that looks a place you trust, but goes to them instead. If you log in with your username and password, you've given them keys to your kingdom.

Here's an example from SANS

Dear email account owner,

This message is from somewhere email administration center to all email account owners. We are currently upgrading the email securities of our database and email account center. We are also conducting a routine check by deleting all unused accounts to create more space for new accounts. To prevent your email account from being closed, you will have to update it below by providing us with the below mentioned so that we can ascertain that your account is prensently in use.

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW

Email Username:....................
Email Password:....................
Date of Birth:.....................
Country or Territory:.............

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Regards,
Admin Team

Thank you for using somewhere email account

If you ever get an email like this, just ignore it, or call your financial institution directly, using the number on your regular card or bill NEVER THE PHONE NUMBER IN THE EMAIL!

(This goes for phone calls and texts too!)

Perry