Alert

I am sure you've heard about "phishers" but what about "pharmers" ??

"phishing," the sending of bogus e-mails -- allegedly from a bank or other online business -- by criminals who hope to hook the unwary.

"pharmers," basicaly plant a seed of malicious software in your own computer; or even worst poison servers that direct traffic on the Internet. The result: You type in the correct address of a Web site, but the software sends you to a bogus one.

Phishing attacks "rely on some gullibility of and participation by the victims," Cottrell says, since they must be persuaded to click on a link within the e-mail. But not clicking on such links "is no protection against a pharming attack."

Here's how the scam works.

The thieves rely on the fact that the word address you use, such as www.my-bank.com, is connected to a distinct numerical address, like a browser to the right Web site. Pharming replaces the number with a fraudulent one, sending you to a criminal site instead of the real one.

Besides keeping antivirus and antispyware programming up to date on their PC, users have few other ways to defend themselves from pharming.

But any site that conducts financial transactions should be able to maintain a secure Web site, Internet security experts say. The corner of the browser should display a padlock symbol, and the address in the address bar should begin with "https," not simply "http."

Are you being scammed?
To determine if you're at the real site, click on the lock symbol and make sure it displays the address you expect, says Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer of F-Secure, an Internet security company in Helsinki, Finland.

Source: Money Central