Geek Superhero: Phishing Net

Geek Superhero
http://www.geeksuperhero.com/phish.shtml

Phishing Net
Some spam emails (and evil websites) will try to trick you into giving out your credit card or the login for your bank's website or other things you don't want to give out to scammers! Then they will use that information to steal from your accounts, make purchases using your information, or even identity theft.

Geek Superhero's Phishing Net now helps protect you from these scams. These can be very official looking email messages and websites, but Phishing Net checks a number of things to make sure you aren't being tricked.

They'll show a link like this, then the window that opens will look just like the real website. Check this link, the status at the bottom of the screen when you put your mouse on it sure looks right, doesn't it!
https://www.paypal.com/
Click the link and see the webpage too, it shows a few more tricks. (More examples below.)

Download Geek Superhero for Phishing Protections! Then after installing (and you'll need to log out of Windows for all the files to get updated) try clicking that link again.

Phishing the news:
Seattle Times A quote: "A successful phish costs the victim an average of $1,200" (!)
CNet.com
CNet.com

How You're Protected
These scams can be very tricky, using things you've seen before (cgi-bin, /login/) in ways that are really a trick. Since it's something close to what people have seen before, these scams can fool just about anybody.

Phishing Net looks at each address you're about to visit and if something suspicious is found, you're warned and can either continue to the website or cancel. It looks for funny things like these:

http://www.paypal.com-scam.com/
http://www.paypal.com.login.scam.com/
http://www.cgi-paypal.com/
http://www%2Escam%2Ecom/ (Addresses that are made hard to read)
http://11.22.33.44/ (Addresses that are all numbers)
http://www.paypal.com@scam.com/
Any popup that does not show the Address bar will have the real server name put in the window's Title.

The newest versions of Windows and Internet Explorer actually does help people with a couple of these--the bottom two on this list.

Version 1.3a ads some new checks to Phishing Net, and a very cool feature to show a Lock icon with your mouse cursor if the link you'll click is on a secure server (or the form you're about to submit will go to a secure server.) A very nice, simple visual aid so you can see you're using a safe site when submitting information like a credit card number.

A Little Warning

You of course also need to use common sense. PayPal®, your bank, etc. will never send you an email asking you to give them your information! Always go to these websites by typing in the address or using a Favorite you have saved, or if there's really some "problem with your account" call them on the phone!

Just like spam filters can still let spam slip thru, Phishing Net won't recognize everything. But the harder they're trying to trick you, the better it does!

More Examples
Here are a few more things you can click, especially when you have Phishing Net enabled, to see the tricks and how they're caught.

PayPal: Using a "Number Only" server, makes it hard to tell where you are. Any real company will have a real name.
http://www.paypal.com/: Simply showing an address in the text, but a different website is where you will go.

Legal
PayPal is a registered trademark of eBay. Trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.