WHAT DOES A PHISHING WEB SITE OR LINK LOOK LIKE?

Fake or copycat web sites are also called spoofed Web sites. They’re designed to look like a legitimate site, very similar or just like our own, sometimes using graphics or fonts from a financial institutions web site. They might even have a Web address that's very similar to the legitimate site you’re used to visiting.

Once you're at one of these spoofed sites, you might unknowingly send personal information to the fraudsters. If you enter your login name, password, or other sensitive information, a criminal could use it to steal your identity. The more informed you are of these types of scams the safer you will be when online.

Here’s an example of the kind of phrase you might see in an email message that directs you to a phishing Web site:

"Click the link below to gain access to your account."

HTML-formatted messages can contain links or forms that you can fill out just as you’d fill out a form on a Web site.

Phishing links that you are urged to click in email messages, on Web sites, or even in instant messages may contain all or part of a real company’s name and are usually masked, meaning that the link you see does not take you to that address but somewhere different, usually an illegitimate Web site.

Notice in the following example that resting (but not clicking) the mouse pointer on the link reveals the real Web address, as shown in the box with the yellow background. The string of cryptic numbers looks nothing like the company's Web address, which is a suspicious sign.