Phishing is a scheme in which Internet scammers send consumers e-mails disguised as memos from well-known retailers, banks, credit card companies and government agencies. These types of message often convey a sense of urgency or warn of account termination. They made the consumer to click on their web address which links directlyto the website of the business or agency.
Consumers are then redirected to a fake website that has probably been cut and pasted from the legitimate website with a fake data. Subtle changes will be made to these sham websites to lure consumers into entering sensitive information or to allow your machine to download any viruses.
A phishing campaign has been detected within the past 24 hours, which is designed to make the user into clicking on a malicious link. Clicking this link may cause your machine to be infected with the Zeus malware (nasty piece of malware). Especially, malware’s main target is bank login details.
The emails would have appeared to come from various governmental agencies. But now a days Phishing Scams involving Government E-Mails also. So, the actual website you are asked to click on, is may not be a government (.gov) site. Opening phishing e-mails and clicking onto their web-links also poses the danger of infecting your computer with a virus.
Some viruses may contain spyware programs to track your personal computer use and monitor web surfing. It can change computer settings, promote unwanted pop-up ads, cause your computer to malfunction, lose data and even crash completely. The UK government is investing £4.3mto clamp down on this growing source of crime.