What is Phishing and why is it a threat?

Phishing is an attempt to collect your personal information. It is an internet powered method of identity theft.

Perpetrators of phishing will create emails complete with company logos (pictures) stolen from the actual web site, or emails, and compose an email of their own. They make the look and feel of the email seem very convincingly official, and real. They will in this email attempt to convince you that they are the genuine entity they are perpetrating. They will attempt to get you to navigate to an official looking web site they have created, and log in, in order to update your account information. The link they give you in the phishing email will not take you to the real financial institutions web site, but a mock web site look alike of the real web site. When you attempt to log in, the criminals phony web site logs your information. The web site may also simulate your successful log in and bring you to a form for you to enter even more personal information. After all the reason they have you there is because they updated their system, and need you to update your account information. Once their web site logs your log in information, the criminals have control. Even if you don't do more than attempt to log in, they will have access to allot more personal information, once they log in to the real financial institutions web site. Once logged in there is a wealth of personal information in your account. Web sites for financial institutions allow you to update your information online. They simply enter that area of the web site and harvest your information. Now they can easily steal your identity, open credit accounts in your name, and destroy your life.

How do you identify phishing attempts?

Financial institutions will never send you an email wanting you to update your account information online.
Let me repeat that NEVER.
Look carefully at any correspondence  from a financial institution requesting you to follow a link and log in for any reason.
What email address did it come from? Is the sender really my bank?
What is the address of the web site they are taking me to?
If you click on it, where did you go? I don't mean what you're being shown (of course that will look official).
I mean look at the web address - where did you go?
(Many times just positioning your mouse over the link in the email will display the links web site address in the bar at the bottom of your computer. This way you can see where you will go if you click the link.)

To people who are not informed, this information can be made to be misleading by the phishers as well.
Domains and sub-domains - Here are some examples to help explain this concept: www.subdomain.domain.com

www.wachovia.com is of course Wachovia - wachovia.com is the domain

www.subdomain.wachovia.com the domain is still wachovia.com, it is just going to a sub-domain named subdomain of wachovia.com

www.wachovia.myphishingwebsite.com is NOT going to wachovia.com, but a sub-domain named wachovia on a domain named myphishingwebsite.com. wachovia is a sub-domain created by the owner of myphishingwebsite.com to put the wachovia name in the address, so people who don't understand this will be fooled in to thinking they are on the official Wachovia web site. They are NOT!!!

This sub-domain trick can be utilized in the web site address as well as the email address. The real domain name is the one right in front of the .com .net or .org - http://www.subdomain.domain.com
The domain indicates the sites true affiliation, not the subdomain.

The phishing web sites exist on the web and can be arrived at through other links as well. You don't have to get there through an email. If you didn't type in the address, or get it from your own shortcut in your bookmarks, then you should examine the address in your address bar carefully to verify where you really are when it comes to any site your logging in to. Don't give your log in information to the wrong web site!

Hopefully the knowledge passed on by this web page will save some one allot of grief from the predatory behavior of web criminals. A little knowledge can go a long way towards protecting your identity, and keeping your personal information safe.