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Stay safe online

Phishing - the link you were trying to connect to was identified as a phishing link.

Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

Online criminals are financially motivated to steal your information, whether or not they
know who you are. They dress the part, talk the talk, and by pretending to be something
or someone they’re not, they try to get your personal details. A phishing website or
message tries to trick you into revealing personal information by appearing to be from a
legitimate source, such as a bank, or social network. We’re always on the
lookout for phishing attempts, fake sites and Internet scams and we
protect web users from visiting malicious sites.

It’s good to pay close attention to all sign-in screens online. You should always be wary
of any message that asks for your personal information or messages that refer you to a
web page asking for these details.

Messages or websites phishing for information might ask you to enter the following
details:

• Usernames and passwords
• Social Security numbers
• Bank account numbers
• PINs (Personal Identification Numbers)
• Full credit card numbers
• Your mother’s maiden name
• Your birthday

Here are a few simple steps you can take to protect yourself against
phishing:

1. Most importantly, never reply to suspicious emails, tweets, or posts with your
   personal or financial information. Also, don’t fill out forms or sign-in screens that
   link from these messages.

2. Never enter your password after following a link in an email or chat that you don’t
   trust. It’s better to go directly to the site using a trusted bookmark.

3. Don’t send your password via email.

4. Only sign in to your account when you’re 100% sure you’re on the real site. If you’re
   not quite sure, check the Internet address in your web browser. For example, this is
   a fake URL: www.goog.le.com

5. Install browser updates promptly, or choose a browser like Chrome that updates
   automatically to the latest version. Many browsers will warn you if
   you try to go to a website that is suspected of phishing behavior. Google offers a
   Safe
   Browsing API which is used by Firefox, Safari and Chrome. They analyze millions of
   webpages daily and each year we find hundreds of thousands of phishing pages which they
   add to the blacklist in the Safe Browsing API that then protects users from these
   pages.

6. Most email providers, including Gmail, allow you to report suspicious
   emails and phishing scams. Reporting a message as phishing will prevent that user
   from sending you more emails, and our abuse team will use the report to help stop
   similar attacks.

It’s good to know that there are some simple ways to protect yourself against phishing.