Tackling phishing

The publication of thousands of user names and passwords for Hotmail, Gmail and a number of other flavours of online email accounts on to the web this week has brought the issue of phishing - the fraudulent acquisition of personal information online, usually for criminal purposes - into the mainstream consciousness.

E-victims is a not-for-profit organisation that claims to be the only online resource for people who have already become the victim of Internet crime. It's headed up by Jennifer Perry, and she came into the HEXUS.tv studios to talk about the human impact of scams like this.

We talk about how all the email accounts were able to become compromised and what you can do if it has happened to you. We ask Perry if she thinks the email providers did enough to prevent it happening and what, if anything they're doing to resolve the problem.

We then discuss what other kinds of problems Perry encounters at e-victims, ranging from fraud, to harassment to privacy issues, much of which never makes the headlines. It's a jungle out there.

 

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