Different Types of Email Phishing

by Sandra Wilson

Simply put, email phishing is a trap that has been set to catch the receiver unawares and get access for the sender to your financial information. Most of these type of email scams are easy to recognize but every day the scammers get more and more sophisticated with the emails they send out. These phishing emails, therefore, can become harder to recognize as time goes on.

Basically, most email phishing scams are an attempt to gain your information, both personal and financial. With this information, the phisher can assume your identity in order to, for example, set up fraudulent accounts or he can just outright steal money from your banking or other financial accounts.

Such emails include the ones in which a foreign individual wishes to transfer money into a state side account so that he may remove such money at a later date. This includes the giving of your account information, having a small amount of money placed into the account, and then a large amount of money withdrawn. It is unfortunate that many people do fall for this simple email phishing technique.

Other phishing techniques include sending an official looking email from what one is led to believe is the bank of that individual. This email is requesting that you update the personal information on the website that they have provided a link to. When you hit the link, the website that they have listed is not the website that you goes to, although it often has the same appearance of a bank website. This type of email phishing is of a much higher level of sophistication than other types and can be harder to identify. You should be aware that many, if not all, financial institutions will never request that you update your personal information via a website.

One of the most important things that one can do to help prevent email phishing is to report each and every email that one gets that appears suspicious. It is far better to be too safe with your identity and finances than not safe enough.

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