what is phishing

Phishing attacks involve the mass distribution of "spoofed" e-mail messages with return addresses, links, and branding which appear to come from legitimate banks, insurance agencies, retailers and credit card companies. These fraudulent messages are designed to fool the recipients into divulging personal authentication data such as:

• account user names and passwords
• credit card numbers
• social security and personal ID numbers

Because these emails look official, up to 20% of recipients respond to them, resulting in financial losses, identity theft, and other fraudulent activity (Source: antiphishing.org)

Phishing is a variation on the word fishing. Criminals "phish" for personal information by setting out "hooks" in the form of email messages and then hope that some recipients of their fraudulent emails will take the bait.

In July 2003, the FBI called phishing the "hottest, and most troubling, new scam on the Internet." Major corporations and their customers have been targets of phishing attacks, including AOL, eBay, PayPal, Citibank, Best Buy, MSN, Yahoo, Earthlink, and Bank of America.

Phishing is now a well established criminal activity - netting criminals millions of dollars per year from their victims. Although users are becoming more aware of the threat, it is easy to make a costly mistake - especially when you're busy and distracted.

how can Sticky Password protect me?

Sticky Password remembers the exact URL of the Internet page to which you “stuck” your password .

Even though a page may look exactly the same as your bank's log-in page - it could even be an exact copy - Sticky Password recognizes the fraudulent link as a completely different website.

Sticky Password will not log you in to the page! Sticky Password alerts you to the fact that something is wrong.

protection from trojan programs

Trojan programs are designed to look exactly like common popular applications. They mimic and replace the original program, so you may not even notice the changeover..

However these programs, as they imitate real programs, are actively trying to steal information from your computer. Although there is no visible difference to you, Sticky Password will not recognize the trojan program, and so will not enter your login details when requested.

protect yourself against identity theft

Phishing is just one of the ways that thieves try to steal your identity online.

Take the id-theft quiz to see how much you know about the risks.