DON'T TAKE THE BAIT! AVOID PHISHING ATTEMPTS
What is a phishing attempt? Phishing is a masked attempt to swindle sensitive financial or identity information from individuals via email communication. Phishing attempts are disguised as emails sent from legitimate organizations or institutions that redirect users to seemingly authentic Web sites that collect data from unsuspecting people. This data is then used for identity theft and other criminal activity.
One of the best ways to protect your email communications from becoming the victim of a phishing attempt is to revise how you handle message text. This is especially true if you use tracking technology that encodes the URL. All Email Service Providers (ESP's), do this as a customer service; many in-house systems do as well. However, Internet Service Providers (ISP's) now look for mismatched URLs and will block or filter any they find.
Do not put your domain name in the display text of an HREF email tag, which is what your readers see in the message: href="l.asp?u=132115248&m=440532&s=1273&p=140&l=http://www.yoursite.com">. Instead, use a descriptive term or describe the action you want readers to take. For example, "Visit us here" or "Learn More". Readers will still see a clickable link, but any encoding for tracking will not create a mismatch.
Most importantly, when in doubt about the legitimacy of an email, always contact your financial institution directly from a service number provided on your bill or statement, or notify the appropriate authorities.
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