Published: 03/09/2005

First there was hacking, then viruses, then spam and now pfishing (pronounced "fishing").  Pfishing is an attempt to gather your personal financial information, such as SSN, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, date of birth, usernames, passwords, mother's maiden name, PIN numbers, etc.  This is accomplished by e-mails purporting to be from a well-known financial institution or major on-line vendor.  The e-mails vary in warning and scope:

• Your account may be suspected of fraud

• Your account may be closed unless you verify your account information

• We want to protect your account information by utilizing advanced security technologies.  Go here to update your information

In none of these instances should you follow the embedded links to fill out on-line information; simply delete the message.  No legitimate company will expect you to reveal sensitive information via email. Furthermore, no company that issues you a PIN will ever ask you to reveal that PIN to any of their employees.

If you are suspicious, contact your institution and discuss the situation.  They are familiar with these Pfishing scams and can confirm that they are not real.

Hints to consider:

• These e-mail messages are cleverly constructed; they look just like they came from eBay, Washington Mutual, Sears, Commerce Bank, etc.

• Clicking on a link in the e-mail message looks like it will take you to a site, but if you hover your mouse above the link, you will notice it takes you to a different site than the one shown in blue