Almost daily, You will get emails claiming someone has changed your password, that someone wants to be your friend, or that you just received a huge sum of money from a long lost uncle. The catch? All you have to do is login and put in your secret answer. Most people have discovered that these attempts are fake, so the continued use doesn’t get quite as many results, it still tricks people.

However, Phishers are trying more aggressive techniques to trick people into logging in to phony websites.A new phishing email (via Trend Micro)that recently emerged claimed that the user’s Bank of America account was accessed by an international IP from an unregistered computer and that their “Foreign IP Spy” detected that breach. However, banks have never been known to register their clients’ computers to their online banking systems. So any email you recieve informing you that your account has been accessed by a remote IP is blatantly false.

It is asking the user to verify and register his current computer by logging in to the Bank of America website. That link leads to a new window which opens a phishing website that is using a fake address bar. Most users who clicked on that link will surely enter their login information.

As you can see in this image, the address bar clearly says that you are on the bank of america secure website.However, Upon further inspection than most end-users know to do you will discover this

You can clearly see that your “Secure Website” is nothing more than a phishing attempt.

So How can you protect yourself from this phishing attack?

A. Only open emails from verified or known sources.

B. Regardless of who the email is from- Do not click an embedded link to go to a Financial institution, go directly to the website.

C. Any Privacy Essential website you go to, verify the source!

(In Internet Explorer)

1. To verify:Right Click and Select Properties.

2. Look in the Web Address (URL) Section to verify what website you are viewing.

3. If it is not the expected web address, LEAVE.

(In Mozilla Firefox)

1.Right Click on Desired Webpage and Select “Page Info”

2.Click the “General” Tab

3.View the Address Selection to verify that your at the desired destination

4.If you are not at the desired location, LEAVE!

(Opera)

1.If you need to know how to do this in Opera 9.x leave me a comment And I will write instructions in, However- because of the low user base; I will not write one at this time.