Phishing Attempts
Phishing is an attempt to steal sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and social security number by appearing as a trustworthy website. These viruses are sent with messages which asks the user to enter their identity information in order to secure a bank transaction or claim an offer. Phishing is one of the number one ways by which hackers successfully steal identities of their users and compromise their email and bank accounts.
Because of the popularity and usage of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, hackers have developed codes to attack individual users of these websites. Phishing attempts are carried out under a disguise which tricks people even further. For example, a phishing website may look like a tiny url of facebook.com but in reality, it could be a malicious website asking the user to log on with their facebook credentials. Once a user does that, the hacker downloads this information and hacks the actual account of the user, thus retrieving personal information.
Apart from forging websites and manipulating links, phishing attempts can also be carried out by bypassing filters, hackers also use phone calls as well as fake wireless networks to capture sensitive information once the victim has logged in.
Phishing costs millions of dollars to American victims every year.