- Terrorism and Identity Theft
- Who Are Identity Thieves?
- What Do Identity Thieves Do?
- College Students and Identity Theft
- Malware and Macs
- Dumpster Diving
- You Are Only As Safe As the Places That Have Your Information
- They Should Know Better
- Hackers
- Identity Theft Risk in Old Gaming Consoles
- The Drug Connection
- Phishing
- Federal Express Phishing Scam
- Newegg Phishing Scam
- Former Good Advice
- More Good Advice to Avoid Becoming a Victim of Phishing
- The Dangers of Aquaman
- Iron Man 3
- Nude Photos of Carla Bruni
- Debit Card Phishing Scam
- Another Debit Card Phishing Scam
- Phishing with a Large Net
- Phishing Around the World
- Spearphishing
- How Do You Know That You Have Become a Victim of Phishing?
- Reloading
- Identity Theft Through Internet Phone Calls
- What Do Kim Kardashian and Michelle Obama Have in Common?
- USB Sticks and Identity Theft
- Internet of Things
- What You Can Do to Prevent Identity Theft
Phishing
The term “phishing” goes back to the early days of America Online (AOL) when it charged its customers an hourly rate. Young Internet users with an addiction to their computers, not very much cash, and a bit of larceny in their hearts sent e-mails or instant messages through which they purported to be AOL customer service agents. In these phony e-mails, under those false pretenses, they would ask for their unwary victims’ passwords in order to stay online on someone else’s dime. After a while, this phony expedition, fishing for information, became known as “phishing.”
Now, phishing is the name of the scam whereby you are lured to a phony website that appears to be legitimate, but when you click on links in these phony websites, download material from these websites, or provide information to these websites, you put yourself in danger of identity theft or of downloading dangerous keystroke-logging malware that can steal all the information on your computer including credit card numbers, your Social Security number, passwords, and various account information.