These emails are referred to as Phishing emails likened to catching a fish where you throw in the rod looking for a bite, in this case entering account numbers and passwords.  This identity fraud can ruin you financially and can take you months or years to first prove you were not responsible and to try and recover some of the money stolen from you.

Legally your financial institution is not obliged to return any moneys to you as a victim of online fraud.  Their terms and conditions usually state quite clearly that it is your responsibility to maintain the integrity of your username/account numbers as well as any password or pin numbers.  So whilst online banking is very convenient the responsibility clearly sits with you in regards to security and privacy of your information.

These phishing emails are designed to collect your financial information and usually do so by copying the websites of your financial institution and pretending that you need to update your username, password, address etc.  These sites are so convincing that it only takes a moments lapse in concentration to compromise your security and privacy.  Your bank or financial institution would never ask you to update information via email. If you need to carry out a financial transaction do so by going directly to the website and not clicking on any email links.

So how can you prevent being tricked by these phishing emails ? Firstly if the email looks unprofessional with poor spelling and grammar you can assume it is Spam and delete the email.  If it is a professional looking email with company logos and colors there is actually a simple way to check if the email you received is legitimate.  Most email these days is delivered in HTML format which gives you richer emails with text and graphics.

Move the mouse over one of the hyperlinks and in the status bar of the browser or email client you will see the domain the link is really going to take you.  If this is not the domain of your financial institution it's Spam and delete the email.  If it does match the correct domain complete a further check as follows.  Somewhere in your email client or browser you should see a 'View Source' option.  Select that and you will see the HTML code that composes the email.

Look for the link and make sure the address in the 'href' tag is a legitimate domain for your financial institution.  Again remember emails from your financial institution you should click on are generally marketing, sales or new product information emails. Make sure you have anti-virus and anti-spyware applications installed on your computer to make sure you do not have spyware or malware that could be recording your account numbers and passwords.

Joey Vella is an IT Consultant with over 20 years of IT and Project experience. Specialising in Windows platforms and system configurations. Joey consults to a number of companies including PCWinTools.com