Gone Phishing... Phishing Begone!!!

With the recent phishing attack on a local bank last week, here are some tips on how NOT to be victimized by similar scams:

• Be wary of "promotions" advertised exclusively on emails. If these are really big promos, the establishments would have also advertised it on television, radio and print.
• If an email comes in and asks you to "verify" your username and password, make sure that the website you are going to really goes to the website you are actually subscribed to. For example, do not go to http://202.123.241.121/index.html if you mean to go to http://www.ebay.ph/.
• When in doubt, type the URL of your bank *manually* on the address bar instead of relying on links from emails or other websites.
• It pays to be paranoid when it comes to your user id and passwords. It also pays to call your bank in case you receive an unexpected email/promotions from them.

These are by no means the be all and end all in combatting "phishing" attacks. But a little bit of care plus a dash of paranoia will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

technorati tags: phishing, scam, internet, online-banking