Phishing and cyberthreats in present day
It is often the case that we are expecting an important email to pop up on our laptop screen. Instead of the expected email, we get a row of spam emails offering all the luxuries, eminent degrees on random subjects from top-rated universities one never heard of, and millions of car and home loans on minimal interest. Spam emails are standard, but such emails that offer enormous prizes are surely doubtful.
We are one of the thousand other people who receive such spam mails daily; a good quantity of them often relies upon such organizations only to be harassed. They are exploited, let it be for monetary frauds or identity glitches (Dhamija, Tygar & Hearst, 2006).
An example from real life
A considerable amount of such fraud victims are elderly people who are not entirely accustomed to handling electronic media on a daily basis. It is easy to lure them with offers and discounts and sometimes even low budget holiday packages that prove to be fraud at the end (Jagatic et. al., 2007). I came across one such email. It was sent from a renowned jewelry house of the state, which was at that time giving out gift vouchers of USD 5,000 (terms and conditions applied). The thing that trapped my attention was the lucky draw to be held before the gift vouchers are to be sold. The first ten names that were to be drawn were supposed to get the $5,000 gift voucher for $1,000. The mail contained a link to the website where the interested customers were asked to share their contact details. After submitting a series of further information to the organization, I saw a form that asked for the bank details; on enquiring about its significance, I was told that it is just a formality. Being from a middle-class family with not much financial luxury to outburst on trivial lucky draws, I stepped back.
A few days after I received the mail, one of my close acquaintances informed about the fraud voucher offers and how many of the lucky draw winners deposited $5000 only to get ghosted by the company offering the deal. Apparently, more than a hundred people got a congratulatory mail that announced them to be the lucky winner and was asked to deposit the full voucher money and were promised that they would get their $4000 back within three working days. Neither their residual amount got credited nor did they get any voucher from the jewelry house. Some of the customers even complained about ambiguous money being transferred to and fro from their account; many were compelled to close their accounts, and few are still paying EMIs for unexplained reasons.
Conclusion
‘Prevention is better than cure,’ the age-old saying proves to be certainly true in today’s world. Internet, electronic media, and modern-day virtual modes of goods and service transference prove to be a great deal of burden for the unaware lots (Fette, Sadeh & Tomasic, 2007). Though, it is not impossible to detect such phishing and fraud mails and their luring offers. People simply have the capacity to ignore or at least cross-examine the credibility of such spams.