Phishing for American Express and tips

As we know, phishing is a criminal type whose main objective is to obtain sensitive information and then financially defraud users by deception which is the most widespread cloning websites banking and financial institutions as we see below.

With the arrival of the celebrations of Christmas and New Year, these techniques will increase their rate of criminal exposure and many alternatives will be used by those who are behind these moves, not only through phishing but also through other strategies such as the spread of malware by virtual cards, chain messages, spam with "opportunities" to buy, and so on.

It is therefore essential to act with caution and be alert to these criminal maneuvers in what way? Well, here I propose three basic tips.

• Secure protocol. Verify that the page where personal information must be accessed, count on the secure version of http protocol(https),so we make sure the site is encrypted through protocol SSL (Secure SocketsLayer). This creates a secure communication channel to protect the data.

• Embedded malicious links. The email is a highly-used channel for the spread of threats like phishing and malware. It is normal to find emails that claim to be from banks seeking to update our data and have links embedded in the body of the message allegedly redirected us to a form where we enter the information. So we should never click on links or respond to requests through the mail.

• Web site encryption. It is important that the website of the bank or financial institution, or any other where we request personal data entry, count on the necessary layers of security to ensure secure transmission of information. We verify the existence of a digital certificate in the web browser and that is not expired. This way we know that we are witnessing a safe place.

So pay attention! Recall that an important part of security and prevention of this, and many other types of threats is on the human factor, ie, in us, so we must turn to best practices that enable us to provide an adequate level of security.

Jorge Mieres