Sowing fraud through phishing, pharming prevalent—PSBank

More than 205 billion e-mails are sent and received each day, but only less than 10 percent of e-mail users can identify regular e-mails from phishing e-mails, which is one of the most popular scams used on the Internet to obtain sensitive personal and financial information. 

Commonly associated with phishing is pharming, another scam that redirects web visits intended for legitimate websites of institutions like banks to fake websites they created to deceive their victims in disclosing confidential personal and financial data for their own gain.

PSBank Vice President for Information Security Division Dan Duplito reminds the public of the importance of being aware about these scams and the risks that come with them.

“The need to be aware of scams such as phishing and pharming is emphasized further as communicating and disclosing sensitive information through e-mail becomes more pervasive. That is why in PSBank we are advocating to fight these scams through an information campaign dubbed as ‘Be Aware’ that provides our clients with tips on how to protect themselves against various scams,” Duplito said.

“One of the top priorities of PSBank is to assure our clients that all their financial transactions are safe. We also strongly advocate financial consumer protection by reminding everyone, so they too can protect themselves from becoming victims of scams,” Duplito added.

While phishing and pharming have the same objective, they are different in methods of acquiring information.

Phishing e-mails often come from unrecognized or unknown senders. The content of the e-mails ask the user to confirm personal or financial information by replying, clicking on a link, or downloading an attachment.

The links found in these phishing e-mails can also lead to possible pharming incidents. Fraudsters using pharming purposely redirect victims to fake websites that they have created or legitimate websites that they have hacked.

“Phishing and pharming scams are usually done through e-mails. E-mails from banking institutions, such as PSBank, will never ask for your passwords, PIN, card details, and other sensitive personal information through an e-mail,” Duplito said.

“Always be extra cautious and practice discernment when it comes to checking e-mails.

We highly recommend that you avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi when conducting bank transactions through online or mobile platforms and to double check if the web address you are viewing is correct and secured,” he added.