Early in 2007, I finally managed to file for my first credit report since they passed the law allowing for one free credit report per year. Out of the number of institutions available for filing my credit report, I chose to go with Equifax. I was pretty impressed with how fast it took for them to process my information. Once they were finished, I was able to see my credit report online. And, in case you were wondering, my credit score is around seven or eight hundred which I hear is pretty good.
This year, I have yet to file for my credit report but I received a piece of email the other day from Equifax telling me that I was required to fill out a particular form they had sent me.
Well, I wasn’t in a hurry to open up any emails from them but when I finally did, here is what I saw.
Looks convincing doesn’t it? Well, after thinking about it for awhile, I decided to click the link to see what it was all about. The result? The first image you see in this post. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this notification which took me by surprise. After receiving the update, I did a Google search on the scam and yep, this was an Equifax phishing email.
So not only did I want to warn others, but I wanted to give a big thank you to the built in Phishing filter in FireFox. You saved me bro!
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 
DON’T TAZE ME BRO!
fishsticks! my firefox must be defective b/c i didn’t get that message–and someone got my myspace stuff :( Now its sending spam to all my friends *too lazy to change the password b/c she’s participating in the national delete your myspace day lol* oh wells…
MySpace is teh death.
MySpace sucks.
Onto more important matters: I used to work for the security department in a bank. Let me tell you, they’re pretty pedantic when it comes to security and it’s understandable why.
I learned a fair bit about phishing attacks and the like.
The easiest way to check is by the URL they provide. Be careful though, because for example I could write: go check out http://www.equifax.com/login which obviously doesn’t take you to that site.
Some have even gone as far as using javascript to disguise the URL you see in your navigation bar. Though most still rely on the stupidity of people.
In short, the safest way is to confirm the URL at the top of the screen and even better if you install some sort of warning mechanism like Jeffro did.
I get about 2 of those type of emails every day. And that’s just the ones that escape my spam filters…