A phishing net is an email that seems to be from a bank or government agency, but is in fact the work of a criminal who is attempting to steal your personal information.
Once you provide the criminal with personal information, the criminal can use this information to access online banking accounts and wire transfer services.
Over 500 cases of the phishing net scam were reported last year in Ontario. These scams resulted in losses of over $96,000. Most alarming of all is that 95% of phishing scams go unreported, placing the actual losses in the millions.
Here are some quick tips to avoid phishing nets:
- Protect your computer with anti-virus software, email filters, and firewall programs
- Pund-IT’s professional services team can provide advice on the best security systems for you business. Give us a call at 519-342-4004.
- Do not reply to any email or text messages that requests your personal information
- Financial institutions will never request personal information via email.
- If you receive a request for information, contact your financial institution immediately and report your suspicions.
- Look for misspelled words in “official” emails. Remember, your bank can afford spellcheck.
- Protect your passwords and change them frequently
- Avoid obvious passwords like “qwerty” or “123456”.
- Avoid Daisy Chaining your passwords. If you use the same password “HansonRules1997” for all of your accounts, a hacker who cracks your gmail account can then use the same password to crack your PayPal account and rob you blind.
