August 15, 2005, Fountain City Focus

On Thursday, August 11, 2005, the North Knoxville Business and Professional Association hosted its first lunch meeting. The luncheon was held at the John T. O’Connor Senior Citizen’s Center at 611 Winona Street. Bettie Wilkie of the center, thanked members for coming to the luncheon and let everyone know that they were welcome to come enjoy the “Diner” anytime. The diner is open to everyone for a great price of only $5.00, senior lunch is $4.50 and hours are Monday – Thursday from 11 am to 1 pm.

The keynote speaker was Tammy Alexander from Fountainhead College of Technology. The program featured a slide show and handout about Internet crime, specifically, phishing trends.

What is Phishing? Phishing is basically an e-mail scam. Phishing attacks consumers to steal personal data and financial credentials. Schemes us ‘spoofed’ e-mails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords and social security numbers. By hijacking brand names of banks, e-retailers and credit card companies, Phishers often convince recipients to respond.

You should be careful about giving out your personal financial information over the Internet. Be suspicious of any e-mail with urgent requests for personal financial information, unless the e-mail is digitally signed, you can’t be sure it wasn’t forged or ‘spoofed’. Phishers typically included upsetting or exciting (but false) statements in the e-mails to get people to react immediately. Don’t fall for the bait. Do not respond to the e-mail. Don’t use the links in an e-mail to get to any web page. If you suspect the message might not be authentic, call the company on the telephone or log onto the website directly by typing in the Web address in your browser.

You should only communicate information such as credit card numbers or account information via a secure website or the telephone. To make sure you’re on a secure Web server, chedk the beginning of the Web address in your browsers address bar – it should be https:// rather than just http:// or it will have a little padlock in the bottom corner of your browser.

Regularly check your bank, credit and debit card statements to ensure that all transactions are legitimate. If anything is suspicious, contact your bank and all card issuers.

Always report “phishing” or “spoofed” e-mails to the following groups:

• Forward the e-mail to reportphishing@antiphishing.com
• Forward the e-mail to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov
• Forward the e-mail to the “abuse” e-mail address at the company that is being spoofed (e.g., spoof@ebay.com), when forwarding spoofed messages, always include the entire original e-mail with its original header information intact.
• Notify the Internet Fraud Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: http://www.ifccfibi.gov

If you have questions about Phishing or cybercrimes, or would like Tammy Alexander to speak at your community event, you may contact her at tam@iawire.org.

About Fountainhead College of Technology's (FCT) Center for Information Assurance & Cybersecurity Training (IACT)

Fountainhead College of Technology, formerly Tennessee Institute of Electronics, was founded in 1947 and is committed to using it resources to significantly contribute to efforts to secure the nation's critical infrastructure. In 1999 the college began offering an associate's degree in Information Technology with curriculum developed to include information security training. In 2002 the college began development of a baccalaureate degree in Network Security and Forensics; and in 2003 Fountainhead College of Technology became the first college in the southeast to offer a computer security focused baccalaureate degree. The mission of the IACT center is to develop and maintain a strong information assurance curriculum that adheres to national standards, and to also address the cybersecurity needs of the community by offering training and support for Fountainhead College of Technology students, staff, and faculty; local law enforcement; government agencies; and information technology professionals.

For more information, please visit the official IACT website at: http://www.iawire.org, or contact Tammy Alexander, Program Coordinator at tam@iawire.org.