Beware Phishing: Protect Your Passwords from Internet Fraud!

I am a little "behind" when it comes to the murky world of the internet. Even for the most intrepid of users, the ever changing face of Internet scamming is complicated to keep up with. None-the-less, I was a little surprised, today, when I was installing updates to my Internet Explorer browser and one of the choices I was asked to make was whether or not I wanted to have each and every web page I visit checked for "phishing."

Phishing? Come again? "Phishing?"

The last time I checked, the closest approximation to phishing I could have unearthed would have involved a hackey-sack, plenty of smoke, and endless jams that tested the patience of even the most diligent of Dave Matthews Band refugees. What could my IE have against phishing?

Perhaps I'd better check into this...

As it turns out, there is a little more to phishing for Internet users than I had imagined. Phishing, according to Wikipedia, is a criminal activity using social engineering techniques. More than your basic worm or virus, which usually rely on your willingness to click on a cryptic link from an unfamiliar email address, phishing actually masquerades as a trusted correspondence to gain your trust and fool you into providing protected information, like passwords or credit card numbers, to the phisherman.

Phishing is phucked, to be sure, and the likelihood that you could be a victim of phishing is gaining in likelihood. The best way you can protect yourself is to be aware.

Several weeks ago, I received an email from "PayPal" informing me that there had been a breach in the security of my account. Alarmed, I immediately logged into my PayPal account and could detect nothing amiss. Rather than respond to the email I had received, I chose to contact PayPal directly through the messaging service on the site (I have yet to hear back from them).