Phishing Scams - A site to check if your concerned about an E-Mail from your bank

[TheBlueRaja]

http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/phishing_examples.html

If your get an e-mail from your bank that you are not sure about have a look here as they have most of the Phishing e-mails on display that are currently circulating - you may find your one on there.

However - even if its not there dont take that as a sign that your OK and its a safe e-mail as it may just be a new scam that they havent got yet.

Generally never click on a link in an E-Mail that is supposedly from your bank and always manually goto your banks web page as this is the safest way to ensure that the page you see is actually from your bank.

[Pia]

Good post

I got a fake email from Barclays once, it asked for my whole secret word, much like in the sticky at the top of this forum, so i wrote in a erm nice word, and once it had my "details" it kindly sent me to the real Barclays homepage!

Always check the url of the site you are on, a real one would look like this:
https://ibank.barclays.co.uk/olb/q/LoginMember.do

https:// says it's a secure site.

I've seen them with allsorts of url's.

Some good info here too: http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/index.php

You can report them here too:http://www.iwf.org.uk/

[Stephen]

Well I have been lucky in that all the phishing emails I get are to do with banks I don't have accounts with so they have been well easy to spot.

[pedantic]

Also, use an email client that has an anti-phishing capability.

Pegasus Mail has this capabilty http://www.pmail.com/ I'm not sure about other email clients,

Regards.

[basa]

Easiest and fool proof way to avoid phishing scams is to NEVER use a link contained in an email !!!

If your financial organisation has a problem with your account it will advise you when you log on through your usual bookmarked links.

[hayesey]

If there is a problem with your bank account you'll get a letter or a phone call, not an EMail. I've never seen a legitimate email from a bank other than just marketing stuff.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Pia

https:// says it's a secure site.

I've seen them with allsorts of url's.

True, but anyone with a few pounds can buy a certificate to use https://. Even if they don't have the money, then anyone with Windows Server can issue their own certificates, but these do trigger warnings in most browsers about an untrusted certificate issuers.

One extra line of security is that each certificate contains not only the name of the issuing authority, but the name of the organisation requesting the certificate.

All browsers offer ways of finding this out.

Opera is, IMO, the easiest. It displays a locked padlock, and the name of the certificate owner in the address bar. You can get more info by clicking this area.

IE displays a small yellow padlock at the bottom of the window. Double click on this to get full details of the certificate.

Firefox also displays a small yellow padlock, but to the right of the address bar. Click on this, and you get some text telling you your connection is secure, and who issued the certificate. Click on "View Certificate", and you should get the full details.

[KingPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

snip

anyone with Windows Server can issue their own certificates, but these do trigger warnings in most browsers about an untrusted certificate issuers.

/snip

And linux servers

[TheBlueRaja]

As they say above SSL can be gained illegitamitely.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/secur...hishing_1.html

Note also how this e-mail showed the first 5 digits of the oweners credit cards, very clever move.