Technofriends

I have written about Phishing several times in this blog, however, if you are still new to the term Phishing, it is a fraudulent attempt to get you to provide personal information, including but not limited to, account information.

PhishTank is a free web based community website where anyone who is registered with the website, can submit, verify, track and share phishing data. PhishTank is run by OpenDNS. Essentially,  PhishTank is an information clearinghouse, which helps to pour sunshine on some of the dark alleys of the Internet. PhishTank provides accurate, actionable information to anyone trying to identify bad actors, whether for themselves or for others (i.e., building security tools). Interestingly, this big information store is free to use for all just like its parent company OpenDNS. I wrote about OpenDNS earlier in my post here.

In order to get started, you need to register with PhishTank. Once registered you can submit a website which you feel is a phishing suspect. Phishing suspects are then verified by the community by voting for or against the claim. You can even do a Phish Search using Phishing Net. Phish search allows you to search for phishing websites using a Brand or a ASN.

You can even report Phishing emails and suspects using Email by sending an email through your registered email id to phish@phishtank.com. Phishtank even provides you with a special email id where you can send your phishing suspects ( available in My Accounts page, once logged in) for any other email addresses you manage.

Data from PhishTank ( blacklist of Phishing websites)  is used by organizations like YahooMail, McAfee, Carnegie Mellon, Mozilla and Web Of Trust and more.

In my opinion, PhishTank is a wonderful initiative against Phishing.

In general these are the basic steps you should be following to stay away from Phishing scams ( adapted from my earlier post, Learn more about Phishing from Phil the Fish)

• Always go through the URL of the website. A closer look at the URL can certainly give you clues with regards to the fraudulent websites.

• Never reply to emails asking for your bank account number, internet user details etc. Remember NO BANK asks you for such information. If they do, CHANGE YOUR BANK.

• The old saying “When in doubt, talk”, holds true here as well. If you are in a doubt about the email/website, just take the phone and call up the call center of the service to get an explanation on your doubt.

• Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing email. Most organizations have information on their websites about where to report problems.

• Don’t open email attachments sent to you by strangers. Email attachments can have programs which can affect your computers once opened.

• Always follow steps to a healthy PC. You can read my previous post 4 steps to a Healthy PC to learn more on this.

• Always keep your Anti Virus Softwares, Spywares and Firewalls updated. You can use Update Checker which happens to be a free service for this. Also read my previous post Use Update Checker to Keep your Softwares UPDATED.

Also check out the below embedded video which talks about Phishing Scams and how they work.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vaibhav1981

Do stay tuned to Technofriends for more, one of the best ways of doing so is by subscribing to our feeds. You can subscribe to Technofriends feed by clicking here.

Related posts:

1. [Phishing Scams] Wells Fargo is the Worlds Most Exploited Brand
2. [Warning] Twitter Phishing Scams are Spreading
3. Gmail’s phishing alerts warns you of suspected messages.
4. How not to get Phished,Learn from Phil the Fish
5. McAfee: Google Code Project Reportedly Abused by Spammers