Anti-Phishing Toolbar

Have you ever gotten an email that reads like this one:

"We regret to inform you that your eBay account could be suspended if you don't re-update your account information. To resolve this problems please click here and re-enter your account information. If your problems could not be resolved your account will be suspended for a period of 24 hours, after this period your account will be terminated."

Regards,

Safeharbor Department eBay, Inc"

This is a real email that I just pulled out of my spam folder in Outlook. And if you didn't know better, you might really believe that these folks are from eBay and that they really have my best interests in mind - after all, they're from Safe Harbor, the fraud and safety division of eBay. However, this is a good example of phishing, an attempt to grab your personal information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and more. I just learned from CNet that there is a new toolbar out there that could cut down on a lot of this junk:

"The TrustWatch Search site and TrustWatch Toolbar, both provided free from Needham, Mass.-based GeoTrust, are designed to help protect people from unwittingly giving up their financial and other personal information to fake Web sites when shopping online or when targeted by phishing scams.

The TrustWatch Toolbar provides real-time alerts, either red to signal that the Web site is unverified as being safe, yellow for caution, or green to indicate that it is verified and users should call the company first. People who want to shop online can use the TrustWatch Search Web site, powered by Ask Jeeves, and the results will show the same alerts."

I think I might send this to my mom who tends to fall for this kind of stuff more often than I'm comfortable with.

Related: Free Adware and Spyware Removers On The Web: Maybe you already have been the victim of a phishing scam or some other nefarious scheme. You can use these free spyware removers to help repair some of the damage.