Antiphishing

There is no such thing as antiphishing and no such tool is out there. For convenience this term has been used. Following are edited from United States recommendation to its citizens.

bullet If you get an email or pop-up message that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply or click on the link in the message. Legitimate companies don’t ask for this information via email. If you are concerned about your account, contact the organization in the email using a telephone number you know to be genuine, or open a new Internet browser session and type in the company’s correct Web address. In any case, don’t cut and paste the link in the message.

bullet Don’t email personal or financial information. Email is not a secure method of transmitting personal information. If you initiate a transaction and want to provide your personal or financial information through an organization’s Web site, look for indicators that the site is secure, like a lock icon on the browser’s status bar or a URL for a website that begins “https:” (the “s” stands for “secure”). Unfortunately, no indicator is foolproof; some phishers have forged security icons.

bullet Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.

bullet Use anti-virus software and keep it up to date. Some phishing emails contain software that can harm your computer or track your activities on the Internet without your knowledge. Anti-virus software and a firewall can protect you from inadvertently accepting such unwanted files. Anti-virus software scans incoming communications for troublesome files. Look for anti-virus software that recognizes current viruses as well as older ones; that can effectively reverse the damage; and that updates automatically.

A firewall helps make you invisible on the Internet and blocks all communications from unauthorized sources. It’s especially important to run a firewall if you have a broadband connection. Finally, your operating system (like Windows or Linux) may offer free software “patches” to close holes in the system that hackers or phishers could exploit.

bullet Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them.

Information on Phishing
Password Harvesting Fishing: This is what Phishing mean. Everyday now some banks (it seems from the mail ) send you mails asking you to provide confidential information. Freeze here! Sense trouble! Don’t bother with any such mails. This the best advise we can give you rightnow.

Phishing Detection; It has been reported that latest versions of Thunderbird e-mail client has a feature to warn the users.

“Thunderbird will display a confirmation dialogue when the user follows a link in an email to a site that looks like it might be part of a phishing scam”