Using the SmartScreen Filter

Phishing is a technique used by thieves to get passwords and PINs (Personal Identification Numbers). It usually works something like this: You get an e-mail message that appears to be from a legitimate bank, business, or your IT department. PayPal, eBay, and banks are favorite targets because people have accounts and deal in money at those sites. The message tells you that you need to respond to some message or check your account.

When you click a link in the e-mail message, your browser opens and appears to take you to the normal sign-in page for your account. However, it only looks like the real sign-in page. It's really a page at some other Web site. You type in your user name and password and then the phishers send you to the real site. In the meantime, the thieves have stored your user name and password in their own database and can now get into your account and get all the personal information in that account, which can be used for identity theft. Depending on the type of site, they may even be able to transfer money out of your account and into their own.

The scam works because everything looks legitimate, both in the e-mail message and on the sign-in page. In the past, the only way you would know it was a scam would be if you took a close look at where the links are really sending you, or if you happened to notice that the URL in the address bar at the account sign-in page wasn't really the business's URL.

Tip In Windows Mail, point to any link in any e-mail message. The status bar at the bottom of the program window shows where the link really takes you. In Internet Explorer, you just have to look at the address bar at the sign-in page to see where you really are.

The phishing filters in Windows Mail and Internet Explorer keep an eye out for you. In Internet Explorer, the address bar turns a reddish color and shows a red shield with a white X. You see a large warning page with a red background if the site has been reported as unsafe.

Another dead giveaway is when the address bar shows an IP address in front of a legitimate site name. For example, http://206.83.210.40/chase-online.com looks as though it has something to do with Chase bank. However, the IP address (206.83.210.40) is the actual Web server address. The part after the IP address, chase-online.com, is just a folder on that server and can be any name the crooks want it to be. It's unlikely that a legitimate business would show an IP address instead of its registered domain name.

In addition to checking for phishing sites, the SmartScreen Filter also checks for sites that offer malicious downloads. This means that the SmartScreen Filter can help protect your computer against infection by malware.