How to Spot Fraud

Fraud tactics include

Dumpster Diving: Thieves rummage through trash looking for bills or other paper that includes your personal information.

Phishing: A scam that involves the use of replicas of existing web pages to try to deceive you into entering personal, financial or password data. Often suspects use emails or texts with a sense of urgency or scare tactics (such as threats to close accounts) in order to get you to visit a fake site.

Vishing: Vishing is a type of phishing attack where the attacker uses a local phone number in a fake email or text message. The goal is to fool you into believing the message is legitimate by instructing you that responding to the request by phone is safer than responding electronically. The unsuspecting caller is then tricked through an automated phone system to provide sensitive information.

Pharming: Pharming takes place when you type in a valid web address and you are illegally redirected to a the fraudster's website. These fake websites ask for personal information such as credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information.

Spoofing: Spoofing is when an attacker masquerades as someone else by providing false data. Phishing has become the most common form of web page spoofing. Another form of spoofing is URL spoofing, when an attacker exploits bugs in your web browser in order to display incorrect URLs in your browser location bar. Another form of spoofing called "man-in-the-middle" occurs when an attacker compromises the communication between you and another party online. Many firewalls can be updated or configured to significantly prevent this type of attack.

Spyware: Loaded on to your computer unbeknownst to you, spyware is a type of program that watches what you do online and forwards information to someone else. It is most often installed when you download free software.

Pop-Ups: A form of web advertising, pop-ups are intended to increase web traffic or capture email addresses. However, sometimes pop-up ads are designed with malicious intent, like when they appear as a request for personal information from a financial institution, for example.

Malware: Also known as "malicious software," malware is designed to harm, attack or take unauthorized control over a computer system. There are many types of malware (such as viruses, worms, and Trojans), and they're commonly spread through email attachments and downloads. A common Trojan component is a "keystroke logger," which captures a user's keystrokes in an attempt to capture their credentials and send them to the attacker.