Tuesday, August 11, 2020

I got hooked by Phishing

 Today, the last of July, I did the stupidest thing in my life. I got hooked by phishing scam online. I didn’t even realize it until my banker called me. With the help of the banker, I stopped my card and requested a new one however, I felt so insecure, unsafe, anxious, and even scared. What if I lost all my money in the bank, or what if they cracked my personal information online, etc.

Dozens of COD students take bait in email phishing scam – The Courier


So, I recalled and analyzed what I did. I was in the middle of searching for class materials and was surfing internet as usual and there was this site popped up that I won a Samsung galaxy giveaway of Google. There were the images of thrown small pieces of paper with a sign “congratulations” and most of all, Google logo was there. They asked me to survey very simple questions about websites and showed me the device with only $1! If I was cautious as usual, then I wouldn’t click it at the moment I saw the $1 sign. However, as ill luck would have it, I was thinking of switching my old smartphone and the prize attracted me right away. Also, I’ve been googling every day and had friendly attitude so I made an excuse that the possibility of win getaway would be higher. So I didn’t have any doubt when I entered my card number.

With this, I realized how easy for one to be hooked by phishing scam. Generally I thought victims of phishing scam are kind of old and less logical and less rational people. I never thought that I would be the victim of that kind of crime but I had to admit that I was conceited that I’m educated, smart, and understand the way to commit a fraud well. This incident threatened not only my financial status but also my mental balance. Once I knew I got hooked by the crime, I couldn’t be calm. I got angry of my ignorance at first and then scared of possible bad consequences. It hurt my self-esteem and self-confidence.

The Internet is drowning in COVID-19-related malware and phishing ...

How can I prevent this? How can I guarantee it will never happen again in the rest of my life? I don’t know. For now, I’m just trying to find someone to blame for this although I know well deep in my mind that it’s me to be blamed on. I’m still scared that literally anyone can be exposed to this kind of crime and can be a victim. 

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