Phishing is a type of deception designed to steal your valuable personal data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data, or other information.

Phishing occurs when an email is sent that pretends to be from Washington University, the bank or a major online merchant like eBay. To make these phishing email messages look more legitimate, the scam artist may place a link in them that appears to go to the official website, but it actually takes you to a phony scam site. These copycat sites many times look exactly like the official site. The con artists hope you will unwittingly provide them with personal information such as your User ID and password, your Social Security number or your credit card number. Some of the more common phrases con artists use are:

• verify your account
• if you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed
• click the link to gain access to your account

Recent emails "from" support@wustl, artsci support team, and support@upgrade.com, for example, are not legitimate. Never reply to these emails with personal information or click on the provided links. Keep your anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-phishing software up to date.