Phishing scams are attacks by social engineers who pretend to be from a legitimate business or organization and use fear tactics to get the recipient to divulge sensitive information. Attackers use a variety of tactics to trick the recipient to believe these emails are legitimate most commonly by spoofing a website that appears to be genuine. Two types of phishing attacks are spear phishing and whaling. Spear phishing is where the attacker takes extreme measures to gather specific information about an individual in order to make the attacks seem more legitimate. Whaling is generally spear phishing targeted directly at high profile individuals. These attacks can be minimized by securely discarding information that could be used in such attacks.
Another threat is Phishing, it is the fraudulent practice of sending emails pretending to be from reputable companies in order to lure individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Hackers can gain access to the computer records of banks, credit card companies, hospitals, merchants, universities, government agencies, and other organizations. Though such breaches occur much more rarely than phishing, even one instance can give the hacker access to millions of people’s personal data, including Social Security numbers, birth certificates, driver’s license numbers, health records, employment records, and financial information. The FBI reports that, since
Identity theft is a major concern today in our country, millions of a person’s identity have been compromised for many of years. Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person’s personal information such as name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, credit card number, or other identifying information to take on that person’s identity in order to commit fraud or other crimes. Stealing an identity is, unfortunately, surprisingly easy to do and happens when you least expect it. Just by opening your mail, something that has personal information on it, throwing it in the trash. Therefore, a person can go through your trash and take all that information and use it against you to take on a new identity.
Nowadays, there is an abundant amount of scams so anyone can be caught up in fraud by con artists. Common scams that are in our lives include, online-dating site deceptions, debt-collection scams, fake rental ads, and non-existent
In legal terms, phishing is an attempt to acquire personal information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity through an electronic communication. First Anti-Phishing Act was drafted in 2005 to regulate phishing attacks, which did not passed. However it
Malware, or “malicious software”, has taken different forms and names for years. Spyware and viruses are just a few of the common titles attributed to this devastating means of cyber attack, the main purpose of which is to ultimately compromise a rival's computer infrastructure. State-sponsored attacks have typically been perpetrated by means of malware. Spear-phishing is one particularly popular means of malware, where by a target is fooled into opening a corrupted email or file, only to unwittingly download a compromising piece of malware onto their computer (XX). Once this malware is installed, control of the computer is placed in the hands of the hacker, allowing them to hack other networks while proving impossible to track down (XX18). China has been a prime culprit for spear-phishing attacks, often following current events to target respective dignitaries. For instance, the 2010 G20 Summit saw thousands of spear-phishing campaigns against officials, with email titles labelled in relation to the Summit itself (XX). Countless departments, institutions, and governments have fallen victim to spear-phishing campaigns, at the count of millions of dollars and priceless information
Bank of America is a multinational banking institute and one of the most trusted in the banking industry. This organizations sole purpose is to protect the customer’s confidentiality and assets by ensuring that data protection is the number one priority; however any organization when holding personal information can be a victim of data breach and BoA is not exempt. One of the largest risks BoA faces today is Mobile Banking. This consumer convenience is used by fifty percent of smart phone owners (Finney, 2014). Phishing is also threat to the banking industry; this strategy by hackers allows the extraction of consumer passwords and other sensitive information. Hackers targeting banking institution employees with convincing e-mails that fool them into clicking on malicious links-which ultimately compromise their credentials or
Phishing is an attempt to acquire personal information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity through an electronic communication. [ Compl. ¶ 28, ECF No. 1.]
While identity theft was present in society previous to the appearance of the internet, this medium has provided thieves with an intriguing method to steal identities from people without even having to leave their house. "Today, more and more people engage in online financial activities such as shopping, banking, investing, and bill paying." (Understanding Identity Theft) While this reflects positively on people's lives by saving them significant time, it also exposes them to a world of
As value customers of the Anthem, Inc. we believe it is important to keep each one of you informed of any incident that might affect your business with us. Your privacy and security is our priority for the reason Anthem, Inc. would like to inform our customers of a recent phishing attack. Unfortunately, we have experienced similar attacks in the past which led many of the employees and customers’ data exposed to hackers. Even though this is a serious matter for the company and the customers it is important for us to make our customers aware that phishing attacks are common and they cause huge losses to both the customers and the companies (Wright et al., 2014). Our most recent attack took place on April 2014 and it affected about 80 million identifiable data stolen via phishing emails. The
Have you ever received a credit card bill at the end of the month with a ridiculous amount of money needed to be paid that you never spent? This is because of identity theft. The FTC estimates that each year, over 9 million people are affected by identity theft. According to Sally Driscoll, this is because almost anyone with a computer and a slight bit of computer knowledge can pull off identity theft. Experts also claim that identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the world. Identity theft is a global problem that cannot be stopped without effective measures. The problem is, effective measures are very hard to come by when dealing with identity theft because almost any security protocol can be by-passed.
With the beginning of internet, various online attacks have been increased and among them, the most popular attack is phishing. Phishing is an online security attack where the hacker targets in achieving sensitive information like passwords, credit card information etc. from the users by making them to believe what they see is what it is. It is the combination of social engineering and technical methods to convince the user to reveal their personal data. The paper discusses about the Phishing social engineering attack theoretically and their issues in the life of human Beings. At the same time this paper also provides different techniques to detect these attacks so that they can be easily dealt with in case one of them occurs. The paper gives a thorough survey of various Phishing attacks along with their preventive measures.
How do you secure your identity with the Internet developing faster than can be protected? Attempting to stay ahead of the hackers and attackers has been a contentious effort since the Internet’s earliest days as a research project. Today, after thirty years of prolific development, security concerns have only increased. Designing computer systems and devices which are capable of resisting attack from within, while growing and evolving at an epidemic rate is almost an impossible endeavor. Today, identity theft is the nation’s fastest growing white collar crime and preys upon the financial resources and reputations of its victims to include children and deceased. In many
Gone are the days when business had to send out flyers to mass markets or have them put on cars in parking lots and hope for the best. Email marketing helps businesses reach their established customers as well as those who would genuinely be interested in their products. This article can help you develop an email marketing campaign that will help you reach your target.
The increasing volume and sophistication of cyber security threats including targeted data theft, phishing scams and other online vulnerabilities demand that we remain vigilant about securing our systems and information.