Recon worms on the way, experts say

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OF course it's Phishing...: I suggest you Every one of those institutions has a web page, and the prominantly state that they do not send email like the ones I received, so 100% of them were scams from criminals trying to get enough information to steal my identity. The real goal here is Identity Theft, and if you do anything other than immediately discard email like this, you are at risk. In some cases, there even are little nasty things embedded in the html they include in the email like 1 pixel sized "web beacons" that reveal information about you. In particular, a web beacon can reveal that you opened that email, and the Phisher now knows your email address is valid. These folks are a little like spammers, but much nastier.

1.) Might wanna proofread your post before hitting the ol' Submit button. The 1st sentence seems to be missing something.

2.) The risk of keeping a Phish isn't NEARLY as nasty as you make it sound. Ok. Let's say there's a beacon embedded in the Phish. And now that you've opened the e-mail, it's reported back to home base that your e-mail address is valid. Ok, So they know your address. About the only thing they can do with that is mark the address in their database as valid and maybe sell it to a spammer. That's STILL a LONG way away from stealing your identity. All it does say is that the e-mail was recieved by someone, somewhere. That doesn't give them your checking/savings account number(s), password, etc...

What to do about phishing expeditions:

A.) Go to the financial institution's legit web site and find their fraud unit. Most banks have one these days and if they don't, they usually have a 24/7 customer service line.

B.) Forward the e-mail you recieved, along with any and all header information available to the e-mail address from the web site.

C.) Once you've forwarded the phish, then, and only then, delete the phish.; Posted by: Wolfie2K3 Posted on: 06/10/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use