What is Phishing?
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. This is similar to Fishing, where the fisherman puts a bait at the hook, thus pretending to be a genuine food for fish, but the hook inside it takes the complete fish out of the lake.
Phishing attacks have increased in recent years and hence it is very important that you check the authenticity of a website before you share your confidential data like Credit Card details, Account numbers, IPIN, passwords, etc., on the site.
You can easily identify a secure website by looking for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate or Extended Validation Secure Sockets Layer (EV SSL) Certificate on the browser.
How SSL / EV SSL certificate can help in identifying a secure website?
If the website you visit is SSL certified, you have to look for https in the url and the padlock symbol to confirm the authenticity of the website.
EV SSL Certificate is a special certificate which provides clear visual indicators to identify a genuine website. This certificate works on latest browser versions – IE 7, Mozilla Firefox 3, Opera 9.5, & Safari 3.2 and above.
For example, if you use Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 browser and the website you are visiting is EV SSL certified, then the URL address bar will turn green. Green bar tells you that the site is safe and legitimate. A display next to the green bar will have the website name listed along with the Certificate Authority.
Authenticated/Secured website
If the URL address bar turns Red, it means that the site might be insecure and you are advised to stop accessing the site
Restricted website
If I am using a lower version of a browser, will I still get a Green/Red color notification for EV SSL certified websites?
No, you will not get a Green/ Red color notification in the address bar, even though the website is EV SSL authenticated. In this case, please look for the padlock symbol before sharing sensitive information on these sites.
It is highly recommended that you upgrade your browser to a version that is compatible with EV SSL certificates.
