But is it really all that….?  Sadly, we would like to think of jolly, sea-side fishing in this case,  but the sad reality about Internet Phishing is that once you bite – you become the Bait and you stand to lose a great deal of your hard–earned $$’s or confidential company information.

 Numerous reports have been documented of our pesky internet fraudsters who are up to their usual tricks, playing on the uninformed! Truly shocking isn’t it! But even the informed can fall for an email appearing in your inbox stating that ‘Your Account is under threat, update your bank details within the next 24 hours or your account will be deactivated!’  Well need I say more…? Some bite and some don’t.  Be careful people! The banks have told us over and over again that they would never ask for your details over telephone or email.   Can we stress this even more! An example of how a Phishing e-mail will look, is that it will be disguised as an official e-mail from a (fictional) bank. The sender attempts to trick the recipient into revealing confidential information by “confirming” it at the Phisher’s website.  Fraudsters do have several ways to Phish; by changing urls to a fake one, through email, through instant messages and even scam us through clicking on those beautiful online banners that are just begging to be clicked on!

 I think here is an opportunity to run a Phishing awareness campaign to the general public (web, ATL, BTL). Perhaps a good idea would be to target on demographics of those being most affected.

 Online threats are definitely evolving.  I feel that it’s a race against our developing online knowledge and theirs – attackers are becoming experts at what they do.  Somehow we need to get even with these fraudsters!  Apparently it is a global ‘operation’ which actually ‘employs’ people to assist with the attacks.

 Here are a few related articles to add to this story:

 BY IOL: 

Telkom Warns on Phishing

Bank Reveals Details of Phishing Attack