Internet Safety
Protecting Your Financial Transactions
What about phishing?
Secure sites can protect your information from being intercepted by cybercriminals, but you also need to be aware that cybercriminals can contact you directly through phishing scams. Many phishing scams are made to look like official notices from your bank, credit card company, or other financial institutions. Cybercriminals can send official-looking emails and create official-looking websites pretending to be an organization you trust in order to trick you into giving up credit card numbers and other account information.
In the Email Tips for Scams and Spam lesson, we talked about some of the ways to identify a phishing email. Below is the interactive we introduced in that lesson, if you would like to review it.
Action Required!
Scammers often try to make us think that not taking urgent action will result in something unwanted, such as a freeze on our bank account.
Trust your instincts. If an email from your bank is out of the ordinary, give them a call.
Misleading Link Names
Whenever you see a link, it might be helpful to think of it as a mask or a costume. What's underneath--the web address--is what counts.
Just because this link says www.bankofamerica.com, does not mean that is where it has to take us. The link could be set to take us to any page on the internet--and that's why you never want to click on links from untrusted or suspicious sources.
When in doubt, type the web address into your browser yourself. That way, you know exactly where you are going.
Logo Fraud
If this looks identical to Bank of America's official logo to you, that's because it is simply a copy or screenshot of their logo taken from their webpage.
Keep in mind that it is easy to make an unauthorized copy of any logo.
Concerned Subject Line
Fraudulent emails often have Subject lines that look important and appear to show concern for your safety. And who wouldn't be concerned about an alert on their bank account!
Here are just a few examples of Subject lines that have been used on fraudulent emails.
• Message Alert - You Have 1 Important Message
• Important Online Banking Settings Have Been Changed
• New Privacy Program (May 2010)
• Unauthorized Login Access Denied
• Bank of America Security Update
• Your Bank of America Account has been compromised
• Email Verification Required
Deceptive Addresses
Scammers often create websites and email addresses that are slight variations of familiar, authentic material.
Look closely at this address, and notice that it is bankofamercan.com, with an added "n".
A scammer can place any address they want in the from field, so sometimes the email will appear to be totally authentic (this is known as email spoofing). That means you cannot always rely on the from field to tell whether the email is from a legitimate source.
Never respond to emails, pop-ups, text messages, or phone calls from your financial institutions asking for personal information. Always call them to verify if there is a problem.
