Fishing vs phishing

Those who know me, know that I have a passion for fly fishing. Its a great way to get out and enjoy the outdoors, relieve some stress, and have some good ol' fashioned fun.
Recently there has been a new type of "fishing" that has surfaced. While it shares the same name it has nothing to do with the sport I love, it is called Phishing. I have received a few emails that are of the phishing type and want to warn others. Phishing is usually an email or pop up and looks innocent enough. It can appear to come from your bank, credit card companies, or similar institutions; even Ebay.
They have all the look and design of an email that you would get from your bank, some even stating that they are trying to stop phishing and tell you to log in on their page to learn details and provide a link. Don't be fooled, it ISN'T your bank. A good thing to do is to hold your mouse over the link and see where it points. Sadly some programmers are even getting good enough that they can show your banks web address even on the mouse over.

Steps to avoid being caught in the PHISHING net:
1. Never click on the link in these emails - your bank will never send an email telling you to "click here", but will tell you to go to their site and log in. Always go to the website and log in there.
2. Report even suspected incidents to places like: http://www.antiphishing.org/ and also to that institution, include as much information as you can.
3. The Federal Trade Commission is also a great place to look and complain.
4. Keep your anti-virus software up to date.
5. Don't send any personal information via email and also be cautious about attachments you receive.

Here is a good test to test your knowledge on phishing. Also do a search on Google on phishing, you'd be surprised what comes up.

Its sad that a sport with such a peaceful and sportsman reputation shares a name with this attrocious and pitiful crime.