Phishing and Pharming

Phishing emails and Pharming websites are two concepts that every internet user should know about. These concepts are important for internet users because they are both very dangerous and their damages are unlimited. I chose this topic because it was very interesting when we learned about it in class and it was actuating new for me even though I've been using the internet since I was 10 years old, and now 10 years after was the first time I heard about these concepts even though I know there were email that are sent to steal your money, I did not know that they had specific terms. That is why I decided to share some of the information I learned with the people out there who still do not know about it.

It is important for internet users to know and gain the knowledge about the world they go to every single day, and how the internet is know 100% safe for children and even adults. Awareness is the key to prevention and by preventing this issue from growing, people can have their privacy, keep their money and personal information from the hands of those hackers.

Phishing emails:
The term phishing derived from the fact that internet scammers "fish" for users' financial information and password data. These emails can be sent to anyone of us as internet users and can fall for them. They are emails that pretend to be from organizations, banks, companies and online shopping websites that claim to know you so that you can pass on to them some personal information, such us bank account numbers, passwords, your name, date of birth or anything that can be useful for their scam by stealing your identity and your money. These emails are use as bait to trick you into handing in your identity.

How do you know:
1.These emails usually start with "dear valuable customer", which immediately shows that this email is fake. Companies use their customer's real name when sending an email.

2.Typos are very common in these emails, which shows unprofessionalism and another sign of a phishing email.

3.Asking an amount of money to be sent to them by saying "Please sent us $500 to receive your 1 million by next week", which is fraud.

4.Links that lead to other websites that look like real organizations and users should visit these fake websites to attach their personal information.

Pharming websites:
These are look alike websites to real organizations, banks and companies. They are usually created with addresses that are similar to the original website. For example YOUTUBE is "www.youtube.com" whereas the Pharming website is "www.youtobe.com", hackers hoping that you mistype the URL so that he can start obtaining your personal information and steal your identity without you even knowing.

Hopefully people can benefit from this information and will be more careful in the future by protecting themselves and their family.