"Spoofing" scams or "phishing" attempt to make Internet users believe they are receiving e-mail from a specific source, trust, or attached to a trusted website when it is not so at all, far from it. Spoofing is generally used as a means to convince people to divulge personal or financial information that allows authors to commit credit card / bank fraud or other forms of identity theft.
In "phishing email" in the header of an email that appears to come from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Distributors of spam often use spoofing e-mail in an attempt to get your recipients open the message and possibly even respond to your requests.
"IP spoofing" is a technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers. In this case, the unscrupulous intruder sends a message to a computer with an IP address indicating that the message came from a trusted source.
"Link alteration" involves altering an Internet address return of a web page that is emailed to a consumer in order to redirect the recipient to a hacker's site rather than the legitimate site. This is achieved by adding the attacker's IP address before the actual address in an email that has a request to return to the original site. If an individual unsuspectingly receives a false e-mail and proceeds to "click here to update" account information, for example, and is redirected to a site that looks exactly like a commercial site such as eBay or PayPal there is a good chance that the individual will continue in personal appearance and / or credit information. And that's exactly what the hacker is counting.
How to Protect Yourself
• If you need to update your information online, use the same procedure you used before, or open a new browser window and type the website address of the website of the legitimate company.
• If the web site address is unknown, probably not authentic. Only use the address you have used before, or better yet, in the normal home page.
• Most companies require that you access a secure site. Look for the padlock in the bottom of your browser and "https" in front of the address of the website.
• If you encounter an unsolicited email that requests either directly or through a website, financial information or identity, such as social security numbers, passwords or other identifiers, exercise extreme caution.
• Take note of the address header on the website. Most legitimate sites will have a relatively short internet address that usually represents the name of the business, followed by ". Com" or possibly ". Org." Fake sites are more likely to have a strong character too long at the top, with the legitimate business name somewhere in the chain, or not possible at all.
• If you have any doubt about an email or website, contact the legitimate company directly. Make a copy of the web site URL of dubious, send it to the legitimate business and ask if the request is authentic.
• Always report fraudulent or suspicious e-mail to your ISP.
January 25, 2011, 01:38:46 AM