READ ON IF YOU HAVE A BANK ACCOUNT!

Phishing is a term that everyone who has a bank account needs to be familiar with, especially those who do Internet banking. Internet banking, also known as online banking refers to performing an online financial transaction such as an account to account transfer, payment of a bill, wire transfer, applying for a loan, opening a new account, etc.

Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails which look like the emails that you normally receive from a bank or a reputed company that you are dealing with. The purpose of phishing is to lure you to reveal personal information such as passwords, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, online account transfer numbers etc.

Phishers usually send you emails which look almost 99% the same as the emails that you normally receive from a company/bank you trust. Such an email normally contains some suspicious information regarding your recent bank transactions, online money transfer and so on. For example, a phisher’s email may contain a message like this:

Dear Axis Bank* customer,

We would like to inform you that an amount of $24,500/- has been withdrawn from your account at 11:59 pm yesterday from one of our ATMs located in New Delhi. We do believe that you withdrew the money yourself. If not, please click on the following link as soon as you receive this email so that we can investigate the matter immediately and protect your account from fraudulent use.

At your service,

Team (Accounts), Axis Bank

The confused customer will click on the link given in the email immediately fearing the misuse of their hard-earned money. Interestingly, the link also will look surprisingly the same as the bank’s website so that an ordinary customer cannot differentiate it. When you click on the link, it will take you to a new window in which you will be prompted to enter your bank account number, credit card details, password etc. And now you can guess the danger of giving such confidential details to a stranger – here the phisher!

So the next time you get such a fishy email, SMS or instant message, don’t forget to call up your bank or other financial firm from whom you think the email might be from; ask them whether they sent you such an email or message before filling your valuable details onto a phisher’s fraudulent site. Otherwise, you are likely to end up letting your money go astray!

*the name Axis Bank is used only to exemplify the concept. It does not mean that only Axis Bank customers are vulnerable to phishing.

Happy Banking

&

Happy learning…

JACOB (Nova English Campus)

WATCH OUT! SPYWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER!

In this Internet-driven era, the Net users are continually bombarded with a lot of technical vocabulary – spyware, adware, malware, spamming, phishing and phreaking to name a few. In addition, new terms are coined virtually each passing day that may confuse even a techie.

Of course, if you are a casual user of the Internet as I am, you do not need to know what all these jargon mean. But you must be familiar with a few of such terms; not just for knowledge but for safety online.

To begin with, let us see what a spyware is. It is computer program that helps someone to gather some information about a person or organization without their knowledge. The concept will be clearer if we take an example. Probably you have downloaded many kinds of software from the Internet free of cost. While installing some of them step by step, you might have checked many boxes such as ‘I agree with the terms & conditions’, ‘send me newsletters occasionally’, ‘also download a free toolbar’ etc.

If you have ever downloaded a toolbar (knowingly or unknowingly) while downloading particular software, you are probably welcoming an uninvited guest – a spyware. The downloaded toolbar which is a spyware, always appears at the top of your Internet browser. It acts like a CC camera in a building – monitoring whatever you do! Spyware can also make their way into your computer when you download free music, movies, TV shows and so forth.

A spyware closely but in a friendly way observes what types of websites you frequently visit, what pictures or videos you often watch, what kind of information you usually share with others online, who you send the highest number of emails and so on. Then the spyware sends a detailed report about your online activities to the developers of the program. Those findings are then sold to a third party who may annoy you with pop-ups, unsolicited emails etc. Some of the more serious types of spyware are even capable of recording your credit card or bank information.