Once you receive an unsolicited email from a bank, trust or any other institution that asks you to click an included hyperlink and provide sensitive personal information, like contact no, bank details, house address etc, then you should view the message with the utmost suspicion. If you have any doubts at all about the veracity of the email, contact the institution directly to check about the email authenticity.
If you supply sensitive information on a website, always ensure that the site is using SSL (secure socket layer). The address of the page should start with "https://" not just "http://" and the Lock icon should be displayed in the browser's status bar. If these indicators are not present, it means that the site is not secure and information you enter on the site is not protected/secured. Fraudulent web forms related to phishing scams are often non-secure sites. Please note, however, that even an apparently secure site may be fraudulent. The fact that a site appears to be secure is not by itself a guarantee that the site is legitimate. However, legitimate sites that require users to supply personal information will always be secure.
Never ever do click on a link in an email in order to access the website of a bank or other institutions that require authenticity through your sensitive data. Scammers can hide away different (unknown) hyperlinks behind known Clickable texts of yours. The safest method is to manually enter the URL of the institution's website, you are allready familiar with, into your browser's address bar.
Always use firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware software to protect your computer system. Some phishing scam emails may carry trojans or other malware that may compromise your system. Use desksense to block harmfull websites as well lock down your sensitive data, including windows protected storage units.
Ensure that your OS, browser, system software and other applications have the latest security updates available. This will reduce the risk of scammers accessing your system via unpatched software vulnerabilities. Stay with the latest updates from your security service providers. Also stay updated about the new alerts of malicious activities hitting the computer world.
