Want to go Phishing?

                Ever see those nice emails that say you have won the lottery, or have won a fabulous prize?  After giving the site your personal information it will probably tell you your money is on your way.  Isn't that great news!?  Sadly it isn't your lucky day, you have just become a victim of a phishing scam.  A phishing scam is where someone impersonates someone you may or may not know and attempted to retrieve your personal information through clever means.

              This is typically done through pop-ups or emails because they are the most abundant and easy to trick people with.  Phishing emails commonly won't have your actual name, it will refer to you as "Valued Customer" or "Hello Friend", by doing this the email can be sent to anyone,  also the email will attempt to trick you into going to a link which may look like a real site link.  By changing the programming code you are able to make the link appear as  "www.wallmart.com", but the link you are actually going to is "www.walllmart.com".  (See real email picture for further information, picture needs link due to size limitation on this site) Upon going to the fake site it will ask you for your personal information and the scam will be complete.  

http://img30.imageshack.us/f/wowaccountfake.png/

          You can prevent these scams by using mostly common sense. Just ask yourself if you are feeling suspicious about an email,  "did you really just win 1 million dollars?", "win a car",  "do you know this person?".  Also make sure to see if they use your correct name in the email.  If you are still suspicious go to google and search the person sending you the email and send them a support message regarding the email.

          As you could see from the fake email, I get these all the time and my brother lost his World of Warcraft account due to it.  He thought it was a real email and clicked on the link, the site that it linked looked legit.  However every time he entered his account info it said it was incorrect.  Due to this later when he tried to login on the game his password and email was changed.   We had to go through 3 days worth of customer support to have the account reissued in his name.  Luckily no credit cards weren't issued with the account, or we could have had bigger issues.