This column is intended to inform internet banking users of any bank about fraudulent schemes initiated by crooks who want to steal your personal information.

Where would we be without the internet? It has made communications across the globe a real-time event and obtaining information on just about anything takes only a few seconds. It has ushered in the information age in grand style. For all of the positive things the internet has done for us, there is a dark side of cyberspace where crime is growing. Let’s discuss some common ways fraud exists on the internet and ways you can protect yourself from being scammed.

Phishing is just one way fraudsters use the internet to get people to unknowingly provide them their personal financial information. A phishing attack is most commonly initiated with a special type of unsolicited email (spam) containing a misleading domain name that appears to be a legitimate site. The email recipient is tricked into visiting the spoofed website because it ‘appears’ to be a website they visit often and feel comfortable entering their username, password, or other personal information. However, once they enter the spoofed website, malicious software infiltrates their computer files to steal personal information including: passwords, security codes, credit card information, social security numbers, bank account information and well, you get the picture. Your private information gets into the hands of crooks who will try to steal your identity and your money.

Note: Do not answer emails from your financial institution that ask you for sensitive information. No bank will do this.

Banks will send you emails and updates informing you to go to their secure website to retrieve the information and messages they have for you. You must initiate the login to your bank on your own —- do not respond to a link in an email that could direct you to a fraudulent site.

Spear phishing is targeted emails toward employees or members of an online group or an organization. Information about the employees or members is obtained from social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook. The email recipients are tricked into navigating to a fake login page where malicious software again begins to do its fraudulent work.

Whaling is a type of phishing that targets affluent people, corporate executives and other ‘big phish’. It is usually customized like spear phishing in ways that trick the email recipients to go to fraudulent websites where crimes may be committed against them without them knowing it.

Pharming involves the redirecting of unknowing users to another IP address for a fraudulent site where the user’s information is stolen. Pharming is accomplished by changing the hosts file on a victim’s computer to send the victim to the fraudulent site even though they typed in the correct address.

So, internet crime is for real and it happens 24/7. It happens to consumers. Crooks trick consumers into navigating to fraudulent websites by sending them seemingly ‘normal’ emails that they respond to with personal and private information. It happens to businesses. Crooks defraud the customers of businesses, causing the businesses to suffer erosion of reputation and trust, infringement of trademarks and copyrights even when the businesses’ computer systems are not compromised.

When using internet banking, you first navigate to your bank’s website. This is your bank’s corporate page and is available for anyone to see. It’s where your bank advertises its products and services and also where you can contact the bank by email for additional information. Once you reach your bank’s website, you must login to the internet banking area by entering your username and password. Once you do this, you are redirected away from the bank’s public website to a secure site where you must be able to successfully login to gain access to your account information. Notice on the address line of the public site that it starts with http:// but when you’re redirected to the secure site, it starts with https:// with the ‘s’ indicating it is a secure site. Also look for a padlock portrayed in the locked position somewhere on the secure site. This is also an indicator of secure site access. When on the secure site, you can usually send secure messages to your bank by accessing the Contact Us or Secure Messaging icons while you are on the bank’s secure site. Sending a secure message from the secure site is NOT the same as sending an email for additional information from the bank’s public site. Secure messages sent or received within secure sites are secure. Email is not secure.

Take the information and suggestions from this column seriously. Enjoy the values and benefits from using the internet to do your research, studies, games, entertainment, shopping and banking. And always be security-sensitive when giving out your personal information on the internet.