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McAfee Discloses Top March Phishing Titles

McAfee has disclosed the top ten phishing scams for March 2007. The security firm has published the swerving e-mail subject titles so that users can identify those phishing scams and not fall victims to identity theft or suffer financial loss.

The subject lines of the phishing scams of March this year are: BB&T - Account notification; BB&T - urgent notice from Protection Department; BB&T - official update; private urgent message from BB&T; BB&T - confirm your information; BB&T-urgent notification; Please confirm your details; official information for client of BB&T; Wachovia New Security Upgrade; U.S. Bank - official information!

Phishing scams aim to part unsuspecting surfers from their financial details like online banking information. In March, e-mails purporting from BB&T, an American bank constituted seven of the month's ten scams, according to McAfee.

Phishing e-mails appear like intimations from users' banks, eBay, PayPal or other online accounts. Often the message asks the recipient to click on an attached link that leads to a fraudulent web page having realistic looking username and password login areas requiring to type in the information. Alternatively, the e-mail may ask to enter or update a credit card number.

The fake URL often appears similar to that of the real institution like citibank.fakesite.co.uk instead of citibank.co.uk as an example. Sometimes the phishing site may also display the bank's logo or images or certain links to the real site.

The security company has also cautioned e-mailers to be careful about phishing e-mails claiming to be communications from HM Revenue and Customs doing rounds on the Internet. Such e-mails appear very convincing that entice the recipient to enter in the credit card details where the recipient desires the office to make the refund, said Kevin McGhee on Avert Labs blog of McAfee.

As the financial year comes to close, such e-mails could appear more convincing just as a batch seemingly from the U.S. Internet Revenue Service (IRS).

By formatting the links in typical ways, they can look like coming from the actual domain. Thus users should type the desired site address directly onto the browser and then login instead of clicking on the URL link, said McGhee.

Related article: McAfee Alerts Windows about Accessibility Hole in Vista

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