How to spot a Phishing scam

Phishing is electronic deception designed to steal your valuable personal data, such as credit card numbers, account data, passwords and other information.

Phishing messages take a number of forms, often appearing to come from a service that you trust like your bank, Internet Service Provider, credit card company or social networking site.
Phishing e-mails often include official-looking logos and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate Web sites and may include convincing details about your personal information that scammers found on your social networking pages.

No one is immune to these scams. The following example was recently received by numerous ISP customers and employees and includes six tell-tale signs of a phishing scam:

From: Technical Support Team [mailto:technsupportteam@mail2webmaster.com] (4)
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 6:12 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: Confirm your ISP (1) account information.

Dear ISP (1) Account Holders,

This is to inform all ISP account holders that upgrading/maintenance of our server has been schedule (3) for July 27, 2009 to help serve you better. You may experience login problems during this period. We are also having congestion due to the anonymous registration of accounts and on this note, we are deactivating some accounts that are no longer active and your account maybe (3) deactivated if no response to this e-mail within 1 week. (5)
To confirm and to keep your ISP account active during and after this upgrade and maintenance, you are advice (3) to e-mail your account information as below
* E-mail: (6)
* User ID: (6)
* Password: (6)
* Home/Office Address: (6)
* Date of Birth: (6)

Your ISP account shall remain active after we have successfully confirmed and upgrade (3) our server.

We apologise (3) for any inconvenience.

Thank you for your swift response to this notification.

Technical Support Team. (2)
Copyright © 2009
All Rights Reserved.


The six tell-tale signs – common to most phishing scams – included in the above example are:

1. Incorrect name or logo usage
   
2. Spacing and punctuation errors: often the result of careless “cut and paste” or “search and replace” functions – The success of these scammers rests with the volume of phishing, not necessarily the accuracy.
   
3. Misspelled words: often the result of a phishing scam originating in a country unfamiliar with our language and grammar
   
4. Misdirecting links: Check all links in an e-mail by moving your cursor over the link and then looking at your browser window. Phishing scammers frequently create legitimate-looking links that deceive viewers and misdirect them to another site altogether.
   
5. A sense of urgency, often coupled with a threat: features of phishing scams intended to scare the individual into acting quickly, without thinking the request through.
   
6. A request for your personal data: The main goal of phishing scams is the gathering of your personal data for financial gain. CenturyTel and other reputable businesses will not ask for your personal data via e-mail.

Please remember these six indicators of phishing scams and you will make it that much harder for the scammers to hook you.