The fraudulent online activities and internet-based frauds that are commonly referred to as phishing have increased exponentially in the last decade. To understand the phishing meaning, you can consider it to be an attack on your devices or information through sophisticated tools and techniques. To overcome them, many banks and financial institutions are introducing multi-layered authenticity checks during financial transactions. For example, banks have started asking you to provide an OTP during each transaction and some of them even validate whether you are accessing your net banking account by asking you to confirm your identity via an OTP that is usually sent through a call or message.
Despite all these methods, your banking and personal information are not 100% safe as the fraudsters are using emails, SMS, social media apps, and many other digital mediums to seek unauthorized entry into your personal space. Now, let’s see some of the most common ways of executing a phishing attack and tips that will guide you on how to prevent phishing:
Some scamsters impersonate your friend or someone from your workplace and send an email that may contain a malicious link or thread. They win your trust by sending some information about you that might not be available in the public domain. For example, they might send your employer’s name, your position in the company, phone number, etc. to make you believe and click on the suspicious link.
These phishing attacks can also be executed by sending a personalized message to your social media accounts. To avoid such a phishing attack, you should never give your sensitive information over email and through social media accounts.
A whaling attack is similar to spear-phishing attacks but here, the intruder tries to win the trust of the victim by sending an email from a legitimate source.
For example, an intruder can send an email to your client with an invoice that he is supposed to clear. Now, the client will not suspect it as it has been sent from your email id but in fact, the intruder hacks your email account first and then uses it to send the invoice to your client. In this case, the client might feel cheated and file a case against you and you will also lose his trust.
To prevent a whaling attack, you can use multiple platforms to authenticate the communication with your client. For example, when you send an invoice, you can also follow it up with a call or message via social media apps to re-confirm that the email has been sent by you.
A vishing attack is usually carried out with the help of a phone call when the intruder speaks on behalf of your bank, company, or any other trustable source and tries to get your personal information. Though people have started identifying frauds that are executed through phone calls these days, sometimes you might get conned as the intruder can win your trust by sending you an email or SMS first.
To remain protected from vishing attacks, you should never share your details over a telephone call.
A fraudster might lure you into downloading a free game or app through a text message. If you click on the link provided in these texts, it will start an automatic download that might install a malicious app on your phone. For ensuring phishing prevention against such activities, you should avoid clicking on links provided in the SMS sent by an unknown sender.
With a pharming attack, an intruder will steal your personal information by targeting your DNS server and host files via an email containing suspicious codes and links. For securing your device’s host files and DNS from such attacks, you should click only on those sites that are protected by HTTPS encryption.
Despite taking all these precautions and anti-phishing tools an intruder might still be able to access your personal information or control your device by using a new or unknown technique. Therefore, it is better that you subscribe to a wallet care plan that protects your private data and devices from intruders. For instance, the wallet care plan from Bajaj Finserv provides a complimentary fraud protection cover that provides high coverage for protecting your finances from a phishing attack carried out through emails, SMS, telephone, or by using your credit or debit cards.
Moreover, this plan offers a card blocking feature that lets you block the services of all your cards at once. This feature proves to be a savior when you lose your payment cards or if they get stolen by someone. The wallet care card protection plan from Bajaj Finserv also provides emergency travel assistance and various other benefits at a nominal premium.