What is Phishing...???
Have you ever
received a mail telling you that you have won a jackpot worth a billion and are
asked to fill in your details to acquire the same by clicking on a URL
mentioned in the mail? Or a forward saying that by clicking on the link
mentioned in the document, you will have the privilege to access a particular
page or section of a social networking site that is not available to the
public? And then after clicking on the link provided, you are redirected to a
Facebook or a Gmail login page, where you enter in your credentials to go
ahead, but you are redirected to the same login page again?
If your answers to these questions is a ‘Yes’, then you have possibly fallen a prey to a phishing attack.
Phishing, is basically a term related to the hacking domain, where an individual(s) or hacker(s) try to acquire your private information (such as passwords) by manipulating a webpage that you may be visiting regularly.This is an easy technique as people generally do not keep a track or think before they enter their details on specific webpages.
The simplest way to implement a phishing attack is by manipulating the ‘action’ command in the source code of a web page. These tricks are generally used by school or college students to fool around with their peers. However, this is very much relevant and usable for professional hackers as well.
The above mentioned examples are pretty much passive, which may not cause much harm to any individual, and if made, can also be reverted by some efforts. However, phishing in banking, organizations, national security etc. could have several adverse effects.
Though it is difficult to be safe
from such attacks always, measures can be taken to avoid such incidents. The
simplest way for this would be to avoid replying to messages or requests that
have been sent to a bulk of recipients, always watch for the green lock in the
URL tab of your browser which indicates that the site is trustworthy and do not
access private information or login into bank, mail etc. accounts on a public
network or cyber cafes.
Linus Castelino
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