How To Report Phishing? 

Report phishing to Anti phishing working group(APWG). Phishers use spoofed e-mails and fraudulent websites as the weapons to fool innocent net surfers. Phishers tactfully extract personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account user Id and passwords, social security numbers, PIN numbers etc.

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phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them by replicating the reputed brands of well-known banks, financial institutions, online retailers and credit card companies.

 Anti phishing working group 

The Anti phishing working group(APWG) and the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) have come together to partner with each other to identify and evaluate solutions to phishing. The FSTC is a consortium of leading North American-based banks and other financial institutions that sponsors collaborative technology development pilots, proofs-of-concept, tests, and demonstrations - supported by member financial institutions and technology companies.

It is mandatory to become a member of Anti phishing working group (APWG), there is no cost to participate in the project's preliminary discussions and the vendors' survey that has been prepared by the FSTC. But if any APWG member wishes, that his proposed phishing solution to be selected for further evaluation by the FSTC in later phases of this project, then the additional pilot project costs have to be paid by APWG member.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is the voluntary association focused on eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing and email spoofing.

The organization provides an open platform to discuss phishing issues, finds out nuisance value of detected phishing attacks, define the scope of the phishing problem in terms of hard and soft costs, and exchange the information and solutions to eliminate the problem. Where necessary, the Anti-Phishing Working Group(APWG) will also help the APMG members to seek upon a legal advice. 

In recent years various phishing scams came in the limelight. The number of sophisticated phishing scams sent out to customers is continuing to increase drastically. Although online banking and e-commerce is seem to be very safe, but you should be careful about giving out your personal financial information over the Internet.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group(APWG) has prepared a list of recommendations below that you can use to avoid becoming a victim of these scams.

Important points to remember

Never entertain a suspicious email with urgent requests for personal financial information unless the email is digitally signed. Usually phishers mislead the people, by exciting but false statements in such a extend that people react immediately to their e-mails.

Phishers usually ask for information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. Phisher emails are mostly not personalized, while valid messages from your bank or credit card company are generally personalized.

Don't click a suspicious links in an email which directs to any unknown web site, if you suspect the message might not be authentic. Instead of that contact the company on the telephone, or log onto the website directly by typing in the Web address in your browser's URL.

Never respond to the forms in email messages that ask for personal and confidential information. While exchanging your personal information always ensure that you're using a secure website when submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser, to ensure it, check the beginning of the Web address in your browsers address bar - it should be "https://" rather than just "http://" Install a web browser tool bar to help you to protect from fraud websites.

Regularly visit your online accounts. Make a habit of checking your bank, credit and debit card statements regularly to ensure that all transactions are authentic. If anything smells fishy, contact your bank and credit card company.

Update your browser for security patches. Download spyware killers and blockers from authentic websites.

While forwarding spoofed messages, always include the entire original email with its original header information.

Forward it to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website.

If you are a victim of phishing scams then always feel free to take the help of Anti Phishing Working Group. And always remember to report phishing to Anti Phishing Working Group.

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