4. Fake Sites

Which health insurance exchange sites are real? "The health insurance exchange isn't made up of a single, authoritative site where people can go and register for coverage," said Christopher Budd, threat communications manager for Trend Micro, in a blog post. "In addition to the federal site, people can apply for coverage at sites run by individual states. Then, within each state, there can also be legitimate third-party sites that provide assistance and even broker coverage," he said.

 Although the federal site does use SSL to verify its authenticity, "a survey of state and third-party sites also shows that official sites aren't required to provide the ability to verify the site using SSL" -- and many don't. "As people look for health care exchanges, they're going to be faced with potentially hundreds or thousands of sites that claim to be legitimate, but [they] won't be able to easily verify that claim," except based on how a site looks, said Budd.

Accordingly, many security experts have recommended that -- just as with banking sites and PayPal, among other sites -- people never, ever click a link to the site that's in an email they've received, or use an online search to find the site. Instead, type the URL into the address bar, to avoid poisoned search results or phishing attacks. Or for healthcare, simply call one of the exchange phone numbers, or visit an office in person, recommended Budd.

Trend Micro
The Coming Risk of Scam "Obamacare" Sites

The root problem is that the Health Insurance Exchange isn't made up of a single, authoritative site where people can go and register for coverage. In addition to the Federal site, people can apply for coverage at sites run by individual states. Then, within each state, there can also be legitimate third-party sites that provide assistance and even broker coverage.

When a person starts looking through sites to find one, at this time, they're faced with the challenge that there's no official marking or labeling that they can look at on a site to know that it's an officially sanctioned site. A survey of state and third-party sites also shows that official sites aren't required to provide the ability to verify the site using SSL: many of them don't provide it for site verification at all, though the Federal site does. As people look for health care exchanges, they're going to be faced with potentially hundreds or thousands of sites that claim to be legitimate but won't be able to easily verify that claim.

The next problem is that when applying for health care coverage, you have to provide all of your most sensitive personal information not only for yourself but your entire family. Most of us won't give our social security numbers out willingly. But when it comes to health care, the industry uses that information so regularly that we've come to accept handing that information over as a matter of course (even if we don't like it).

Put these two things together and you've got a situation where people are primed to give away their most critical personal information to legitimate sites but can't be sure of finding their way to those legitimate sites.

This is a perfect environment for identity thieves and other criminals to put together bogus sites to get personal information they can use or sell on the digital underground. And this situation also provides an opportunity for old fashioned healthcare scammers to offer bogus coverage and fraudulent billing scams to more unsuspecting people.

SecurityWatch
Beware of Fake Obamacare Insurance Marketplace Sites

How to Stay Safe
To avoid scamming sites, Budd said that people shouldn't start by using search engines to find information. Search results can be easily tainted by phishing sites, and targetting popular phrases is a key strategy used by scammers.

Instead, people should start at https://www.healthcare.gov. From here, they can find the appropriate Marketplace website for their state. Information about legitimate third party insurance suppliers can also be found on these sites.

Whenever possible, connect via SSL and use HTTPS, instead of HTTP, at the beginning of the URL. On HTTPS sites, a small lock icon should appear just to the left of the URL. You can click this, and verify the authenticity of the website.

If the certificate is expired, or if you're not sure you can trust the website for any reason, take it offline. Budd told SecurityWatch that some insurance vendors can be reached over the phone or in person.

Most modern browsers, like Chrome, will throw up a warning screen if they detects anything untoward about the site's certification. "If your browser raises a warning, stop there unless you know what you're doing," said Budd.

And google obamacare phishing sites

Do not click on links in emails. Type the url in to your browser address bar yourself.

I mean seriously wasn't that the Hawaii argument some of the D bags over at Fox were pushing for Obama, that Hawaii wasn't a real state, almost inferring that they are someone less informed than us real Americans.

Donald problem is very similar to many of the Bush supporters had/have, the simply don't like any criticism of their beloved one.  And that anyone who provides it, even people in their own party, is RINO, or in Donald's case to Edger, some foreigner who should keep his mouth shut.

God forbid someone reports the hubub over at Fox news.

What is he going to report, some scum bags in Nigeria are going to sent a zillion emails with some kind for scam that some Americans will invariably fall for ?

Phishing has got nothing to do with the website security other than using the name to scam people.  Are there actually issue with security at the website is what he should have addressed, not scammers creating fake websites.

Paypal was one of the first to get hit with the fake website phishing.  Their actual website was safe, the problem is the phishers sent out emails that appeared to look like they were from Paypal with a link to fake site that looked just like the real a site.

There is literally nothing a company or the government can do to prevent the gullible getting scammed.