Security

The Pitfalls of Anti-Phishing Software

Anti-phishing programs help protect you from malicious websites attempting to steal your personal information or infect your computer with a virus. Although useful, anti-phishing programs can have some problems, such as mistaking good websites for bad ones or causing performance issues with your computer.

Purpose of Anti-Phishing Programs

Anti-phishing programs scan websites and emails looking for potential problems. For example, many phishing websites are designed to look like popular, safe websites, attempting to trick you into submitting your personal information. Other phishing websites gain access to your email and then use your email handle to send spam to other email addresses. Anti-phishing programs flesh out these harmful websites and warn you before you enter.

Performance Problems

Anti-phishing software programs can cause slow or poor performance speed on your computer, depending on the amount of random access memory, or RAM, your computer has available. Since your computer uses RAM to access and run different programs, you’ll need enough available to run the anti-phishing software in the background while you browse the web and use other programs. If you get near the available RAM limit, your computer will become sluggish.

Scanning Problems

Anti-phishing programs are manually updated by employees of the software company or volunteers, which occasionally causes delays and human errors. For example, hackers develop a new method of hiding a harmful phishing website and deploy the method across several websites. Until your anti-phishing software is updated to recognize the new method, you run the risk of opening one of these harmful websites.
On the flip side, some anti-phishing programs are overzealous in their attempt to stop malicious websites. As a result, the programs prevent you from entering a safe website, mistaking the site for potential threat.

Tips

Read the system requirements for the anti-phishing program thoroughly and verify that your computer meets the requirements before installing the program. This will alleviate any performance issues.
Don’t rely entirely on the anti-phishing program to scan for potential threats when you’re browsing the web. Double-check the name and address of each website before entering in any personal information and don’t provide any personal information to an unknown website.

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