Identity Theft on the Internet: Pharming On Your Land

                                                                                         

By now you have probably received at least one of those "urgent emails". The one telling you that your account is about to be shut down unless you immediately update your personal information by clicking the link contained in the email.

They may even have heightened the urgency by telling you that if you do not take immediate action that you could be facing a lawsuit. For what exactly is not clear but it does the trick by raising your stress level and forcing you to take instant action.

The next thing you know, you click on the link provide the required information and breathe a sigh of relief. So do the identity thieves who sent the email. They just caught you in their phishing trap.

However you saw this scam coming a mile down the road. Not today right? No problem as far as these online con artists are concerned. So the next time around they skip the phishing and go straight for its first cousin; commonly known as pharming.

In some way this is more insidious than phishing. You open your browser, type in a web address and hit enter. Without getting too technical, basically what happens is that domain name servers (DNS) go about looking for and verifying the address you are requesting to be connected to.

Pharming attempts to intercept and reroute your connection request to a phony website; much like the ones that are waiting for you in the phishing email links. The site looks a lot like the real thing.

So as you enter your personal information it is captured by hackers who then use it to do what all thieves do. Rob you blind. This can take the form of raiding your account or opening up new lines of credit. One thing the thieves will not reroute is the bills, which will come directly to you.

The best way to deal with pharming is to make sure your web connections are secure particularly when you are attempting to visit a site that contains your personal information.

Hopefully if you are using online banking the financial institution is using a validation key verified by a trusted third party source. Check with the bank if you want to be sure.

After a three year decline, identity theft roared back to claim nine million victims in 2008. Even with the previous down turn, it remained the number one consumer complaint. With pharming on the loose it's not too hard to figure out why.

About the author:
Article written by Daryl Campbell at Identity Theft and Fraud. Learn more about identity theft over the internet and how to protect yourself.

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