Get spam and phishing protection with Cloudmark Anti-Fraud Toolbar (Beta). The Cloudmark anti-fraud toolbar evaluates each web page you visit and rates it as "Good" or "Unsafe". This site rating helps you gauge the trustworthiness of a site before you provide personal or confidential information that puts you at risk of identity theft or phishing attacks. Additionally, the site rating is also takes into account malicious content such as viruses, spyware, and worms.
How can you protect yourself from phishing schemes? Well, you can start by following these three rules:
1. If you have an account with a company, don't trust ANYTHING you read in account-related email from that company. If there REALLY is a problem with your account, the company will contact you via snail mail [a.k.a. postal mail hand-delivered by your postal carrier.]
2. NEVER click on a hyperlink in an email from a company with whom you have an account, regardless of how legitimate the email or hyperlink might appear. If you need to visit the company's website, close your email program, ignore everything you read in that email [including any web page addresses you may have seen], open your web browser, and manually key in the regular web page address for the company's homepage. Then login to your account with that company like you normally would. If there is a problem with your account, the company's website will tell you once you login.
3. If you need to personally contact a company with whom you have an account, the ONLY contact information you should trust is the information on your monthly, paper statement or on the back of your credit card. Assume that any contact information in a business email only points to a criminal wanting to steal your personal information.
[Nov 05] New Website Adds to Wealth of Anti-Fraud Information Online - A coalition of government agencies and private companies has teamed up to launch one of the more comprehensive fraud information sites on the web. LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com, launched last week, provides consumers with an abundance of useful information about frauds of all types, from online phishing schemes, to pyramid schemes, to bogus hurricane relief scams. The website is the product of a unique collaboration between the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, FBI, and private companies such as Monster.com and Target, among others. Thanks in large part to the proliferation of online scams, fraud has taken a quantum leap forward recently. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, 207,449 complaints were reported in 2004, a 66.6 percent increase over 2003; the total monetary loss from all referred cases of fraud was $68.14 million with a median dollar loss of $219.56 per complaint. LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com offers some very useful consumer tips to avoid becoming a victim of fraud including:
Other useful anti-fraud links include:
How to recognize spoofed Web sites [Microsoft]
eBay Security Center
Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)
National Consumers League Fraud Information Center
Federal Trade Commission
Direct Marketing Association's Consumer Assistance Page
Urban Legends Reference Pages
Department of Justice Special Report on “Phishing”
Consumer Advice on Phishing www.antiphishing.org. Check out the advice we've compiled for consumers on phishing:
• How to Avoid Phishing Scams
• What To Do If You've Given Out Your Personal Financial Information
Are you a phishing victim? If you are willing to talk about your experience to help educate and warn others, please let us know at info@antiphishing.org.
Always report "phishing" or “spoofed” e-mails to the following groups:
• forward the email to reportphishing@antiphishing.com
• forward the email to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov
• forward the email to the "abuse" email address at the company that is being spoofed (e.g. "spoof@ebay.com")
• when forwarding spoofed messages, always include the entire original email with its original header information intact
• notify the Internet Crime Complaint Center (FBI/NW3C) by filing a complaint on their website: www.ic3.gov
Identity Theft issues can be addressed by accessing the Attorney General's website: http://caag.state.ca.us/idtheft/index.htm. The Attorney General's office is the lead organization on ID theft. You can get information on the six key steps for entering your name into the Identity Theft Data Base, find links to other sites you should inform, get forms and file a complaint on their website. If you would like to notify an agency about the identity theft schemes and other frauds you can send the original message (with complete header information) to the California Attorney General at caspam@doj.ca.gov [N.B. if you don't know how to find the full header display, Google email header full display, find the instructions for your email program; LavaNet technical support has quite a few, including the elusive Eudora Blah Blah Blah button].
The Consumer WebWatch site is a grant-funded project of Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. This site's mission is to investigate; inform; and improve the credibility of information published on the World Wide Web (to help you avoid and detect scams). You'll find in-depth reports evaluating Web commerce overall and by genre (such as online hotel booking), and lots of links to various groups committed to Web credibility, consumer protection and advocacy, privacy, and more.
The Identity Theft Resource Center - If you think your credit record is bad now, wait until someone steals your identity. The ITRC is there to help, with guides (how to prevent it, what to do if you're a victim), forms, shopping tips, and even tips on testifying in court. You get solid advice on protecting yourself and, if your identity is stolen, on cleaning up the mess.
For those of you who like reading about urban legends, or who would like to know more about these apocryphal stories that circulate through the media, or would like to know what you do *not* need to worry about (unless, of course, some sicko decides to copy one, as in the movie "Urban Legends"), following is just a sampling of many resources and references offered:
www.scambusters.org
Internet Scambusters Issue #22 (www.scambusters.org/Scambusters22.html) covered in-depth the email hoaxes -- also known as "urban legends" -- that have been making their endless way around the Net.
Urban Legends and Folklore with David Emery urbanlegends.miningco.com
"The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society's Urban Legends Reference Pages" www.snopes.com/computer/computer.htm
"The AFU and Urban Legends Archive" www.urbanlegends.com
And if you want to discuss the legends with other aficionados (or just read the discussions), Google Groups alt.folklore is a great place, go to the Folklore Topic of your choice.
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