Phishing

Phishing is what hackers do when they create fake websites, phone numbers, or even email addresses. They are meant to mimic legitimate sources for only one purpose: to get information, steal money, and deploy malicious programs and user devices.

The first important phishing attack happened in 1996, when a hacker, AOHell, was released. AOHell sent out fake mass emails to all America Online users, stating: “This is AOL customer support; make sure you reply to this email with your username and password to verify this account.”

Very similar to a weekend fishing trip (hence the name), these attacks are meant to be sent to many people, but only a couple of victims provide the information. That’s how phishing was born.

These days, millions of phishing messages arrive in tons of email and social media accounts. Usually, these messages might inform you that they have a certain amount of money for you, ask you to fill out a survey, or even trick you into reimbursing a government or financial institution.

How to react to identity theft

Identity theft is quite obvious. For instance, if someone starts spending all the money or tries to max out their credit cards, then it’s an obvious sign of identity theft. However, some thieves are a bit more clever, as they manage to take small purchases and loans without their victims even noticing.

What is there to do? The first step would be to notify all the relevant financial institutions and cancel your credit cards. This way, thieves won’t be able to continue spending the money. Even so, if you’ve been hacked on multiple levels, scammers might still be able to access those accounts and steal your new card numbers or account information, as long as they still have access to your device.

The good news is that you won’t have to throw your computer on the street. All you need to do is close up all the backdoors in the system, but if you don’t know how to do that, you might need professional help.

Probably the safest choice for anyone who’s been through that is Norton LifeLock’s identity theft protection. It includes insurance against identity theft losses and live phone assistance with making the needed changes to compromised accounts.

LifeLock tech support staff could use remote access tools to log into the computer and remove any threatening malware that hackers might have secretly installed on your device.