People are about to try to rip you off — here’s how they’ll do it
People are about to try to rip you off — here’s how they’ll do it
Phishing, in case you don’t know the vocabulary, is when you get an email that pretends it’s from somewhere trusted. Your bank, for instance, or a company you’ve done business with online. The email asks you to go to a special website to “re-enter” or “confirm” private data. Once you do that, of course, it’s off to the races and they take your money, use your identity, or otherwise take advantage of you.
Phishing is likely to increase because Epsilon has been hacked and it’s a company that was handling email communications for a lot of very well known companies. Names we have heard so far (quoted from CNET): Target, Kroger, TiVo, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Home Shopping Network, Ameriprise Financial, LL Bean Visa Card, McKinsey & Company, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Marriott Rewards, New York & Company, Brookstone, Walgreens, The College Board, Disney Destinations and Best Buy. There are likely others that have not yet been named.
So if you, as a customer, have ever given your name and email to any of those companies, the bad guys might now have that information. It’s not your bank account number, mind you, it’s just a way of getting a hold of you.
We talk to security expert Anup Ghosh, who says unfortunately, the skill of the phishing con artists has increased to the point where you can’t really tell what’s a real email and what’s a scam. Even when you go to the fake site they have set up, it might look like the real company site and everything, right down to the url. Worst of all, the fake emails might tell you that they’re writing to you in response to the recent security breach. In other words, the breach that they conducted.
Also in this program, a jetpack company is making videos instead of selling jetpacks. We want jetpacks!
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