Phishing

It is a form of Internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs and passwords. This style of identity theft is becoming more popular, because of the ease with which unsuspecting people often divulge personal information to phishers.

Examples:

Phishing has been widely used by fraudsters using spam e-mail messages masquerading as large banks (Citibank, Bank of America) or PayPal.

Stay Safe:

Users who are contacted about an account needing to be "verified" (or any other topic used by phishers) can contact the company that is the subject of the email to check that the email is legitimate, or can type in a trusted web address for the company's website into the address bar of their browser to bypass the link in the suspected phishing message.

Additional Resources:

Protecting Your Personal Information Online
StaySafe.org offers tips on how to keep your personal information safe while online.

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