Phishing

What is phishing? It is a way of obtaining your details by deceiving you into thinking that you are entering them into a valid website. These websites are usually such good imitations of the originals, that most web users will easily be deceived. Espaecially as the website you see, mimics the website you expect to see. However, help is at hand. Most browsers do incorporate and anti-phishing element and if activated, this will flag up a warning to indicate that this site is dangerous.

Although this is useful, it is not infallible and further precautions should be taken. One such precaution is based on your ability to detect such sites where the browser has failed. Phishing sites are usually easy to detect if you know what to look for, and the URL's listed below are possibly the most valuable and informative that I have come across in a long time.

Perhaps we should be publicising Anti-phishing Phil. This is a website that teaches through the medium of play. Play the game and you will learn how to spot phishing URL's.

http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/


http://wombatsecurity.com/antiphishing_phil/index.html



As always, please be cautious and apply common sense to your browsing and web usage.