"Hello, we here at Last Domestic Bank have been hit by a nation-wide blackout and require your bank details again. Failure to do so will result in your account being shut down."

Does that sound familiar?

What about the persistent email from someone claiming to have money stashed away in a Swiss bank account, but all they need is a bit of money to get it out?

Yes, phishing is a huge annoyance to say the least, but what exactly is it?

The term 'phishing' is used to describe acts of fraud via the internet, often by people pretending to be an institution or authority of some kind. But why do people phish?

Well, most people phish for the same reason that other people commit scams ? to get rich quickly. Other reasons for people to phish would be to gain personal details such as social network logins and website passwords. It all seems like a mysterious and shady endeavour, but there are a few techniques to spot.

Techniques in use

Many phishers will format their emails to look as official as possible, claiming to be SARS, a bank, or something similar and asking for your bank details while giving a shoddy excuse.

When encountering an email such as this, it would be best to either forward the mail to the company in question to enquire about it and to spot signs of generic replies, e.g. "dear customer" instead of your username. Phishing attacks have begun to use personalised information in an attempt to draw in victims though, so this is not a clear sign.

As a general rule, however, it's safe to say that no financial institution will ever ask you for your details via an email. When in doubt, it's best to contact the institution by phone and enquire.

Another technique would be to send emails containing seemingly normal links, but in reality, they are linked to a completely different site. These sites will often contain malicious software that is then downloaded onto your computer when you visit the site. One should rather type out the URL in the address bar of the web browser instead of clicking on the link.

One way of dealing with these emails would be to forward them to anti-phishing sites such as www.antiphishing.org. Or you could just delete them...

Some telltale signs

Another method of phishing, known as website forgery, occurs when criminals attempt to replicate a trusted website, fooling people into divulging their personal and bank details.

One way of spotting a fake website would be to hover your mouse over the link in a web browser, then checking the lower-left hand corner, which shows the proper URL.

Another way of avoiding this would be to attach 'petnames' to your frequented websites in the Firefox web browser. Simply go to 'tools', 'add-ons' and search for 'petnames'. Install the extension and you're good to go. So if a seemingly familiar site pops up but doesn't have your petname attached, you'll be prepared!

Before undergoing any transactions over the internet, you'll want to check the lower right hand corner (Firefox) or to the right of the address bar (Internet Explorer) of your web browser to make sure that a padlock icon, signifying that the site is secure, is present. The URL of the website will also read https://, with the 's' signifying security.

Online fraud is a constant battle between customer and cyber-criminal, but whenever you're in doubt, rather error on the side of caution.