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| Introduction: It is quiet common these days to find mails in the spam bin that do a good mock of having come from our banks or sites like pay pal or e-gold. A person would be asked to log in to his account (the link is provided) and confirm certain details. Person receiving such mails should be utterly cautious. THIS IS THE MOUTH OF THE SCAM! |
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| Why do people get trapped? Clone websites are based on cybersquatting (a trick of misusing the goodwill of a reputed online company by infringing the copyrights and trademarks to make evil money) and are craftily designed to match the authentic sites that are regarded and trusted by people, pay pal for example. |
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| Thousands of people are sent phishing emails by fake banks, fake auction sites and fake online shops. These emails typically contain an urgent message compelling the recipient to go to the site immediately on some pretext. One such message could be to inform the recipient that their password needed to be updated before the online account was suspended. Because the email looks authentic and because of the urgent tone of the email, most recipients don’t even think twice about doubting the veracity of the email. |
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| The email is designed to make it super convenient to the recipient; there is even a link embedded in the email itself. Once the victim clicks on this link, he is redirected to a fake clone website that looks exactly like the genuine site and so the hapless victim is still unaware that he is headed straight into a trap. Now the victim proceeds to do as asked and punches in critical personal and financial information about himself including his credit word number, internet bank account number and also his password. This is like giving a criminal the keys to your safe. With this critical information in the hands of a scamster, you may as well kiss all your money goodbye. |
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| Extent of the Scam A recent survey that was conducted revealed shocking statistics – more than 100,000 new phishing pages were being launched every week, of which 99.8 % were created using automated phising kits; a daunting thought indeed. |
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| Making a bad situation even worse is the fact that currently available software solutions are unable to deal with such a significant number of pages every day, and there is a large possibility that a considerable amount of software solutions could very quickly become outdated and vulnerable. |
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| How to identify the fake clone websites? Most internet banks declare that they will never ask you to re-confirm your password for any reason. If you do get a mail asking you to do so, do not follow the instructions given within. Just delete this mail right away. |
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| If you have a nagging feeling that you should check your account and make sure that there are indeed no problems with it, then you should access your account through the usual link you use in your browser. Never click on the embedded link that is included in the mail. |
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| Clicking on dubious links that are included in the email messages could get your computer infected with the virus present in it. This virus is typically capable of recording anything that you type and is known as key logger. For this reason it is recommended hat you always keep your computer updated with the latest anti-virus software. |
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| Finally, many people get these mails since they are sent in bulk. But even if 5 out of 5000 people receiving these mails respond, the scammers make good money. So it’s our hands to be careful with these fake clone websites and keeping your personal details safe is after all our own responsibility! |
