Clark Howard's Tips

New wave of phishing e-mails

Sept. 19, 2008

Five years ago, the hottest rip-offs were phishing scams, where you received a bogus e-mail that looked legit and claimed to be from your bank or a busines. The hope was that you'd click on a link in the e-mail to access your account online and reveal sensitive financial info.

As consumers got wise to the threat, criminals ratcheted things up by getting toll-free numbers to make their ploys seem legit. Eventually, people got wise to that too.

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Now the latest wrinkle is that there's a new wave of e-mails that are so secure and legit looking that even people who work in the financial industry are falling prey.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 95% of these e-mails are aimed at the customers of banks and credit unions. This is surprising to Clark because the big bucks are in brokerage houses, so you think criminals would target those customer bases.

The takeaway here is that you shouldn't click on any links in that e-mail! Instead, open a new browser and go to your bank's website where you can manually access your account. Likewise, take care to ignore any telephone numbers they want you to call.

Of course, there's danger in just opening a phishing e-mail. You may inadvertently download a keylogger. To avoid that danger, some bank websites allow you to enter your password using your mouse -- a move that defeats most current keylogger technology.

Be aware of what to do if you get a call from somebody claiming to be from your bank. They may talk a good game and have tons of info on you -- but it's probably the kind that's all obtainable on the web. So hang up and call your bank back at the number on your statement that you know is legit.

Clark is not trying to scare you; he just wants to make you cautious.

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