Middle School Phishing Lesson for the week of May 4th
You may have heard the word phishing in relation to online safety and wondered what it meant. Imagine that YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION is the fish these phishers are fishing for. Your phone number, address, financial information, passwords, etc… Phishers are online scammers who are trying to get you to provide them with your personal information so that they can use your identity and/or get financial information from you.
A few common examples of phishing scams are;
- emails from people you don’t know, saying that you’ve won something you didn’t try to win, or saying that something is wrong and you need to immediately provide them with information or something bad could happen
- a pop-up link saying you have a virus and need to provide information to get rid of it
- a pop-up link offering you something for free if you do a survey
It is important that we learn to recognize these scams so that we keep our own and our parents personal information safe. Never respond to these kind of links or emails and report them when possible. And when in doubt, show them to a parent or teacher to find out if it’s real or not.
I want you to watch this video and then post in the comments if any of these phishing scams has ever happened to you or someone in your family and what it looked like.
Share information about phishing scams with parents, grandparents, and friends so that everyone can protect their identity online.