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Cybercrime Prevention Project | Fact Sheet #2: Don’t Get Phished

Has this ever happened to you? You get an email that looks like it’s from eBay, PayPal or Citibank, asking you to update your account. But don’t click on that link! You may wind up on a Web site built by scam artists that downloads a keystroke logger to your home computer that records all your passwords and sends the information to a stranger overseas. Millions of people have fallen for scams like this – even if they don’t do business with the company sending the email. Phishing emails usually pretend to originate from financial services companies, Internet service providers or retailers, though some entrepreneurial phishing scammers once even hijacked the name of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, responsible for prosecuting email fraud.