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You would receive an email from what looks like a trusted site of a certain bank. You may be asked to visit a link that is provided to you in that email. The email might ask you to verify your account, as otherwise your bank account might expire. When you click on to the link you are taken to the website of the named bank, which never looks suspicious to you. The website asks for your username, password, and could even ask for your account number. Your personal information is thus taken away, and the next thing that you know that your bank balance is nil.

You could receive an email, which would appear to have come from ebay’s PayPal online payment division. The email would tell you that unless you update your financial data, the account that you hold with PayPal would be suspended. It would take you to a site which is an exact replica of the PayPal website, and as you key in your credit card details, bank routing and social security numbers, along with your other personal details and click and submit, you would then start to count your financial loses.

There have been incidents when phishers have used flaws in a trusted website’s own scripts. These are called cross-site scripting. You sign on the webpage, where everything, starting from the web address to the security certificates seem to be correct. When you provide the personal details as wanted, the details are straight away available to the phishers. This is very difficult to recognize without specialist knowledge. It is worthwhile to remember that, PayPal, banks, or any other such sites will never ask you for your personal information.