Phishing now against the law in California

[PrntRhd]

California just passed the first law in the country establishing phishing as a civil offense. Victims can press claims for actual damages or $500,000 per incident whichever is greater.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-10-01T002628Z_01_KRA101575_RTRUKOC_0_US-CALIFORNIA-PHISHING.xml

Personally I would also go for criminal penalties.

[123456]

Wait..what's phishing? I've seen hthe anti-phishing thing in IE7, but I still don't know what it is.

[Budfred]

Phishing mainly consists of scam email that tells you to go to your banks (or other financial company) site and log in to make sure you have the correct data on file... When you click the link in the email, you are taken to a site that looks very legitimate, but is actually set up to collect that information so that the phishers can then clean you out... If they can, they will take everything you own and steal your identity in the process... Phishing scams have gotten very sophisticated to the point that any email from a financial company needs to be viewed with great suspicion and it is important to NEVER click a link in an email from a financial company to access a site... Go to the site through whatever link you already have for them... Most sites will now have a way to report phishing scams or at least check out if the one you got is legit...

[123456]

Thanks guys.

[Suchy]

Cool, but what hapens if the scam is from otside of the US?

I got plenty of Paypal notices (at least what looked liked them), but the link went to a russian domain. Luckly I did not fall for that, but what if I did and my account got cleaned.,
Would the law helped me out, if I lived in California
?

[PrntRhd]

You are correct, all Law is local but the Internet is Global in scope.
:(

[Sempron]

There is something all of us can do to make sure the website we are visiting is genuine. You can use a simple bit of JavaScript code to find out the real URL of the site that you are visiting.

Type the following JavaScript into your address bar and press enter.

javascript:alert("The actual URL is:\t\t" + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/" + "\nThe address URL is:\t\t" + location.href + "\n" + "\nIf the server names do not match, this may be a spoof.");

This will bring up an alret box giving you the Actual URL you are visiting and the Address URL. If they dont match, it may be a spoof. http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a275/loinsign/phish.jpg

As you can see PC Guide Forum is a-ok! :p

Of course you're not going to remember the JavaScript, so I suggest copying the code and pasting it in a word processor until that time comes. I hope none of us have to use it but it's there if need be.

[Budfred]

FireFox has an extension that will do the same thing and you can get a probably accurate take on what the site is by putting the cursor over it and looking in the lower left hand corner in FireFox and some other browsers... You can also check Properties on the link...

[PrntRhd]

With Firefox you can also go to Tools>page info.