Today's Devotional

October 21,  2005

 

Subject:  Satan's Going Phishing

2nd Corinthians 11:13 - 14 "For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."

Most computer savvy users already know about phishing but for those who don't, here is what it is:

Pronounced (fish´ing), it is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has.  The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. You may have seen the phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already had.  Because it is relatively simple to make a website look like a legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counts on people being tricked into thinking they are actually being contacted by eBay and are subsequently going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming (sending email) large groups of people, the “phisher” counts on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually have listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately.

Phishing, sounds like and is much like “fishing,” the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.

To computer users this may be a new idea but for believers, we know that this idea has been around since the beginning.  Satan began in the garden with Eve, transforming himself into an angel of light, throwing out the bait for Eve and she took it.  The world can change what it calls things but it's all the same to us.  

Today Satan is still trying to imitate and mimic God's "HTML" code (God's word) and since he is, it would behoove you to get some antivirus protection (intimate relationship with God) to stop the spam and junk mail that he's sending your way.  The last thing you want is for Satan to access your account with God. 

Carlen