In the past, I've written about "phishing." Basically, it's a
way for unscrupulous thieves to steal your identity. They send
you an e-mail that includes a link to a bogus site that asks you
to type in your personal information. Keeping yourself safe from
phishing is simple: never, ever click a link in your e-mail that
asks for any personal information. If you are a PayPal or eBay
member, for example, and you get an e-mail that seems to be from
them, don't click the link in the e-mail. Take the three extra
seconds to open up a new browser window and type in
www.paypal.com or www.ebay.com directly into the address bar.
Avoiding this form of identity theft is easy, however, there's a
new type of attack that's more complex. A term called "pharming"
describes a new way to trick you out of providing personal
information. Pharming is another name for something that's been
around for a while called "domain spoofing." Instead of sending
an e-mail, pharmers attack a fundamental piece of the Internet
called domain name