How to Avoid Phishing and Fake Websites: Protecting Your Data Online

Frequently encountered advertisements offering to buy quality goods on the internet suggest that these ads are phishing. Acting aggressively on a person, attracting their attention, and luring them, scammers pursue the goal of enrichment at the expense of naive users.

Phishing and Fake Websites

By sending scam messages to phones or contacting victims on social networks, scammers hope that a person will definitely click on the link. The main goal of such viral sites is to collect as much personal information about each user as possible. They need information such as:

• card number;
• bank account number;
• access codes, passwords, and keys;
• user identity information.

Fake websites are well disguised by scammers as genuine ones, for example, well-known brand names or banks. On phishing platforms, scammers use the popular color scheme of brands, filling their site. If a site is fake under a known banking name, scammers may take complete information from the original site but will change the details for financial transactions or deposits, leaving the numbers of cards, accounts they need.

How to Protect Against Phishing

Constantly incoming messages on smartphones, social networks, messengers with offers of quick earnings, additional investments, profitable investments, attractive promotions are mostly phishing. To protect against phishing, it is necessary to show resilience towards such messages. If the sender of such messages is unknown, it is recommended either not to open or, without opening, to delete completely from the platform.

If you do not click on the links and ignore these messages, most likely the phishing attack will soon cease.

If the scammer knows the phone number, they will start the attack using various methods. To avoid this, it is necessary to understand that the phone number should not be distributed. Often, most applications, for example, in stores, banks, pharmacies, are registered to the same number. Scammers can hack or steal such a database and start sending messages inviting you to visit the site.

Signs of a Phishing Site

To avoid spending a lot of money and effort on creating a site, most scammers work according to one scheme, which allows recognizing a phishing site. It has several signs:

• the site is built on one page, where you can only enter data in the search bar;
• there is no https value before the name;
• the address bar image lacks a lock icon;
• there is no literacy and beautiful design;
• saturated with messages about the mandatory entry of data during registration, both personal and financial;
• suspicious files that can install a program.

If even a couple of such signs are present on a site, it is necessary to be vigilant and refuse to work on this resource.

Protecting Data from Online Scammers

Manipulating people, scammers strive to seize information about finances, incomes, so it is imperative to understand that protecting data from online scammers is simply necessary. Experts give recommendations on protection in online resources:

• do not click on unknown links;
• it is necessary to check the resource address;
• update software;
• use antivirus programs, applications;
• do not use financial information on a public wi-fi resource;
• install applications only from well-known verified sites or official sources;
• it is necessary to use high-complexity passwords;
• set up two-factor authentication;
• periodically check the bank card in banking to avoid unauthorized payments.

How Not to Fall for a Fake Site

There are special platforms in smartphones that allow downloading verified applications. This system allows a person to be protected from the possibility of landing on a fake site from scammers, although fraudsters use long-known phishing methods. Official developers try to monitor this information and warn their users.

Scammers infiltrate the official site and offer to discuss the topic on social networks. To avoid falling for these scams, do not respond to a message where an unfamiliar person starts a conversation about:

• finances,
• investments,
• brokerage programs;
• charitable foundations.

To participate in charity, a person can independently find a fund that interests them.

Phishing Attacks and Online Security

Phishing from scammers often penetrates users' smartphones; they can be learned to block or filter.

It is necessary to set a function in the gadget settings that allows the program to automatically filter spam links and messages into the spam folder.

With additional account protection, it is possible not only to organize online security but also to protect your funds. Requiring to re-enter additional information of the pin code, additional SMS, which has the password for login or registration.