Phishing is a very sneaky type of fraud conducted over the Internet. Its name is a throw back to the early days of hacking and identity theft and the practice of phone phreaking. While there can be very complicated schemes devised, they are all based on a very simple concept.

Phishers try to persuade you, or trick you into giving them sensitive information which they can then use to make money out of the system. For example, one very attractive target for phishers would be your paypal account. Paypal is an online payment system that allows you to put money in your account with your credit or debit card, and then basically email the money to other people’s paypal accounts. It is very simple, cheap and fast and very popular for online shoppers as they do not have to give their credit card details away over the internet. Read the rest of this entry »

The internet is a wonderful place; many of us use it on a regular basis for a multitude of functions. Email helps us to keep in touch with family, and friends all over the world and most people have at least one email account. The growing use of digital cameras and camera phones means that we can send pictures at the click of a mouse. MP3 players have become increasingly popular, and we can download songs to play on them with extreme ease. All of this is great, and the internet is becoming a big part of our everyday lives. Read the rest of this entry »