A new phishing message!

[thewayne]

Found this in my junk folder tonight:

From: "Federal Deposit Insurance Corp." <info@fdic.gov>
Subject: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Online Form
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:53:35 +0800

Prevent the risk of being targeted by criminals who use Identity Theft and get your money.
Enroll in the FDIC to project to put your deposits at safe with FDIC protection.
Don't risk to lose your kids college money, your life time saveings, your family wealth.

· The FDIC protects you against the loss of your insured deposits in the unlikely event that an FDIC-insured institution fails. If you or your family's deposit accounts at one FDIC-insured institution total $100,000 or less, your funds are fully insured. If you or your family has more than $100,000 at one insured institution, you can still be fully insured if your accounts meet certain requirements.

· The FDIC insures deposits in most banks and savings associations located in the United States. Deposit accounts maintained in separately chartered banks are separately insured by the FDIC, even if the banks are affiliated, such as belonging to a common holding company. All deposit accounts maintained by a depositor at one bank are insured separately from accounts that the same depositor maintains at a different, separately chartered bank.

We have received an application from your bank to ensure your Checking or Savings account against Fraud, phising or Identity Theft.
If you agree with the following, PLEASE ENROLL in the FDIC protection system.

Enroll Me

Getting Started with OrderMail: Before you begin, be sure that you have assembled the following current information about each of your deposit accounts at an FDIC-insured institution: Contact Information such as Phone Number(s) and Address, Financial Information such as Name of Owner(s) and Name of Beneficiaries, Personal Accounts Information that will be protected.

To obtain accurate results, your entries must reflect the information contained in the account records of your FDIC-Insured Institution (Bank Name).
Mail your questions to:
info@fdic.gov.us
Attn: Deposit Insurance and Protection Outreach Section
550 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20429

OK. So if the fact that (a) it was in my spam folder, (b) horrible spelling and English usage, and (c) the link does not go to the real FDIC, I suppose it would be easy to fall for.

Still I found it amusing.

I have a new phishing message from "ebay" that I'll post soon.

Comments

[slashophile.livejournal.com]

Heh, phishing messages kill me.

Why do they call is phish?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Good question. (and I REALLY hate hearing panelists on radio shows responding to every question with "good question!") My guess would be that it's two-fold. First, the bad guys are "fishing" for information with which to do you harm. Second, Fishing is not 'leet, so they had to rename it to make it cyber-cool. Thus, "phishing"?

;-)

Not being satisfied without looking it up on that trove of urban lore, Wikipedia, I found myself satisfied with my definition. They say:

"The term phishing is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' financial information and passwords. The word may also be linked to leetspeak, in which ph is a common substitution for f. The popular theory that it is a portmanteau of password harvesting is an example of folk etymology."

[slashophile.livejournal.com]

u r teh smrt! ;) Thanks! I kinda always thought something like that but never thought to look it up.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I love Wikipedia. It may not be an authoratative source, but it is more than accurate enough for my needs. If I needed to know which chromosone to manipulate while cloning my poodle to make her have pink hair, I'd probably look elsewhere. Otherwise, it suits my needs quite well.