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<seo title="What is phishing" metakeywords="what is phishing,network security,identity theft,phishing" metadescription="What is phishing" />

<div align=justify>Most of you have heard about phishing but do not know exactly what it is. So, what is phishing?

Phishing is a type of online identity theft that attempts to make people reveal their personal information. Phishing emails usually appear to come from a well-known organization and ask for your credit card number, social security number, account number or password. Quite often phishing attempts appear to come from sites, services and companies with which you do not even have an account. Cyber criminals simply create a copy of an existing web page and try to make them look as legitimate as possible. 

In order for Internet criminals to obtain your personal information, they must make you to go from an email to a website. Phishing emails will almost always tell you to click a link that will take you to a site where your personal information is requested. Legitimate organizations would never request this information from you to be sent via email. 

Your personal information obtained with the help of phishig email can be used for  many different types of fraud, such as to steal money from your account, to open new accounts in your name, or to obtain official documents using your identity.

Below we would outline some basic things for you to check if you suspect you get a phishing email:

* most phishing emails contain the following combination ''"urgent attention, we have recorded suspicious activity on your account, please login to your account and verify you are the account owner"'' or something similar;

* there may be a link that takes you to your bank or PayPal page. Make sure that the link title and the URL in your browser address bar coincide. To do this just hover your mouse over the link and check the status bar (depending on the browser, it can be at the top or at the bottom). E.g. the link can say '''www.paypal.com''', but the actual address will differ. In this case this is the identity theft attempt for sure.

* very often such emails contain attachments (called ''a card from an admirer'' or ''your bank statement'') by downloading which you put your network security at stake;

* if a suspicious email is sent from someone you know (this may be a relative or a close friend) do not open it just because you think that person wouldn't send you anything bad. It would be better to check with that person the identity of the email in question. The email account of your friend might have been hacked.

Do your best to prevent possible phishing:

'''1'''. Update your antivirus software on the regular basis;

'''2'''. In case you need to enter your personal info to log into your bank account (e.g.), type the URL needed yourself, do not follow it from the email;

'''3'''. Contact the organization the email is claimed to be sent from and check it with them;

'''4'''. Check whether the page you are asked to enter your personal info at starts with https:// (''s'' stands for ''security'')

'''5'''. Legitimate organizations won't ask you to send the personal information via email.

'''6'''. Keep your network security high.</div>
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