Can you spot “Phishing” attack? Simple test to check your safety!

Answer 5 simple question and get to know how safe you are from fishing attack. Phishing is rapidly growing attack whose sole purpose is to steal your login details like user name, passwords and in some cases your credit card numbers.

Phishing Phishing is a type of fraud where bad person try to acquire your sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity such as your bank, your social network, etc. You can find more formal definition and technical information regarding phishing on wikipedia.

Test how safe you are from phishing attack…

More about phishing is posted below, but first take “fighting phishing” test by paypal. Its free and you don’t need any paypal account to take the that test.

It just asks you 5 simple question and if you can answer all of them right then you don’t need to read further! Although most questions uses paypal in its name, they are equally true with all major social networks, banks and other portals. So go for test without any hesitation!

Phishing Examples…

Now hopefully you are done with test, let me give you 2 simple examples of phishing via email…

  • You get an email from your favorite social network with from email id like [email protected], saying we are deleting inactive users as part of our annual maintenance program. In case you want to retain you account, please verify your account by visiting http://www.facebook.com/verify
  • You get an email from your bank with from email id [email protected], alerting you about an attempt to hack your account. As money is involved, you get panic! On next line, they say something like verify your account, blah blah! Again they give a link like http://www.icicibank.com/verify.

In both cases, from email address and target of links are forged! You can click on above facebook or icici links and see where it takes you! 😉

I posted 5 tips sometime ago where you can save yourself from such fake email ids as well as misleading links. Also read tips posted by Deepak while covering a recent phishing scam on Orkut.

By the way, do let us know your score and any doubts you have against this rapidly growing scam on internet! Just for info, I scored 5/5! 😛

Links: Phishing Test | What is Phishing?

Related: 5 Simple Rules To Fight Against Phishing

(image credit: hoax-slayer)

9 Comments

Deepak Jain January 22, 2009

I scored 6/5 in the paypal phishing test 😉

shalin January 22, 2009

somehow.. i got 5/5 [:P]

just now, when I finished the test and got 5/5, I felt like taking a snap and uploading it here.. [;)] i feel the requirement of same when I have a query regarding something which I have to explain it here, and could have been self-explanatory by just uploading a snap-shot here.

r u people planning to let users upload pics here ? not a bad idea.. [;)]

Sriganesh January 22, 2009

Check out http://www.phishtank.com
Similar to digg to find out phishing sites….

Chinacki January 23, 2009

I got 4/5 — dangit. Guess I’m more at risk for identity theft, then.

I know it doesn’t necessarily apply to email but isn’t extended validation ssl usually the best way to tell if a site claiming to be paypal is legit or not? I like how paypal’s url bar is green even with their little educational novelties like this — I usually know that if I’m on a site with only standard encryption and it’s asking for my password, I shouldn’t give it any information. That would also help in situations like the facebook example you give above. I don’t even know why phishers persist nowadays, it can’t be reaping many benefits.

Rahul Bansal January 23, 2009

@Deepak
How can u score 6 out of 5! 😛

@Shalin

Nice idea bro. I really wonder how I missed a good idea like this myself. 🙂

@Sriganesh

Nice site man. Will really spend time on it.

@Chinacki
Phishers persists because their techniques work most of the time!
As social networks are growing rapidly many not-so-techie users are using Internet. These people are really easy to target! 🙁

Ripi February 10, 2009

5 for 5. Pretty good for an old lady !

Deepak Jain February 11, 2009

@Ripi
Congratulations!! 🙂

Bapun March 21, 2009

I will be careful…