Protect Your Personal Data

The development and use of the advanced technologies and customer services can result in numerous benefits, but at the same time the risk of misuse is increasing and the service users are facing potentially dangerous electronic content. Various Internet fraud attempts are happening on a daily basis, and therefore it needs to be taken care of the protection of personal data so that they would not end up in “wrong hands” and cause damage to the customers.

One of the most frequent forms of fraud is “phishing”. Most often, it is the act of sending e-mails from a false e-mail address in an attempt to manipulate the user and scam the user into surrendering private information such as user names, passwords, PINs, credit card details and other personal and confidential information. By acquiring such personal information, phishers create the opportunity to make material gain, which could cause many problems to the users who are the victims of phishing.

Besides e-mails, other communications channels can also be used for the phishing attacks, e.g. instant messages (ICQ, Skype), social networks etc.

Hrvatski Telekom pays special attention to the safety of its users and offers various forms of the Internet protection, like firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spam protection. However, regardless of the implemented protection technology, the use of the Internet services requires additional caution and attention of users. Therefore, the priority is to accomplish security in the use of the Internet services in accordance with their development trends by means of education and raising the public awareness.

If you receive a suspicious e-mial, do not provide your personal information in any case, do not follow the links or open the attachments contained in the e-mail, unless you are absolutely sure who sent them.

If you receive a suspicious e-mail, you can report them at: abuse@t-com.hr .

How to Recognize Phishing E-Mail:

• Grammatical errors: Phishing e-mails often contain grammatical errors, because the persons sending them do not spend as much time to correct them as the legitimate companies and they frequently use automatic translation tools (e.g. Google translator). The phishing messages generally look very unprofessional, especially if written in Croatian.
• False links: The links in phishing messages often do not match with URL (the address the link points). Never follow the links in the suspicious messages. Instead, hover your cursor over the link for a couple of seconds without clicking on it, because with the majority of modern e-mail programs the actual address where the link is going to take you will appear in the bottom of the window or above the cursor.
• Threats or rewards: In order to motivate the user to do what they want s/he is instructed in the phishing message, the phishers frequently user threats or rewards. The examples of threats include closing of the user account, service cancellation or even legal some legal consequences. The rewards most frequently include money (lottery money, gifts, tax return, etc.).
• Using the identity of legitimate companies or institutions: Phishing messages often seem to be sent by recognized companies, Internet services or other government and international bodies. The false address of the sender (“From” tab) and the visual identity (logo, font, etc.) are only some of the techniques used to deceive the user. Since widely known legitimate companies and institutions never ask for the personal information in this way, it is easy to recognize a fraud.
• Program warnings: Modern e-mail programs and web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome) have installed mechanisms for recognitions of the fraudulent content. When opening a message or visiting a web page, the program can display to the customer a security warning in the case of potential phishing or any other kind of threat. Even though they are very useful, such mechanisms are not perfect and it is not advisable to rely fully on them.