You get an e-mail from a company website with whom you’re a registered user. It asks you to update your login info for said site, so you follow suit, inputting your passwords and other private-ish data. Cool.
Except not. In an increasing number of cases, those e-mails are actually fake, products of “phishing” scams that steal the inputted personal information and sometimes trick users into further sharing highly confidential data such as bank account and credit card numbers. These kinds of attacks are responsible for everything from identity theft to celebrity nude pics and probably those lackluster Detox leaks years ago, as well.
This past Friday, Epsilon, a company specializing in e-mail marketing lists, disclosed details of a major security breach that may increase the proliferation of phishing e-mails. Because Epsilon customers include banks such as Chase and Citibank, in addition to retailers the likes of Best Buy and Target and even services such as TiVo and College Board, the number of potential targets could be in the millions.
Phishing attacks are most common in the financial arena so vigilance and trepidation is key in avoiding falling victim to any banking swindles.
But even generally speaking, be on the lookout, lest you want the world seeing your dong pics and ruining your credit.—Devin Chanda
[via NYTimes]
