Ramblings of an old Doc
Published on February 1, 2014 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

 

Yeah…you guys and girls are probably pros at this stuff by now. I figured I’d do this for the folks who want to check the topic out – especially since Yahoo’s email got hacked. Also, it isn’t a bad thing to be reminded of from time to time.

First, always be suspicious. You’ll see an email purporting to be a prize, or a ‘fix’ for a problem – like a patch for software, or against malware, or of account compromise. That’s the hook. There will be a link in the email. Don’t click on it. Ever. Instead, go the firm’s genuine website and look for warnings about that ‘compromise’. Also, you can ‘mouse over’ the link. Look at the true url which will appear. If it doesn’t look like that software’s url, report the email as a phishing attempt. Microsoft doesn’t notify about patches, etc. through emails. You’ll never win a contest you didn’t enter. Really.

Next, check the spelling, grammar and date. Any mistakes, it’s very likely bogus. The date thing? Make sure it is in our format (Month/day/year) and not some other format

Browser extensions like Web of Trust and those belonging to security suites like BitDefender and others. These can give an indication of the trustworthiness of sites previously reported to them. That means others have fell for it and reported back. That might come too late, however.

Don’t fill out any forms asking for passwords or personal info.

In the source I used to prepare this post, they suggested that if you use a smart phone, you can click on the link. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. There are malware apps which have been designed for Android and iOS. Better to just report the suspicious email.

Source:

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57617839-285/spot-a-phishing-e-mail-in-2014/?tag=nl.e214&s_cid=e214&ttag=e214&ftag=CAD3c77551


Comments
on Feb 01, 2014

Thanks for the reminds. Even us pros need reminders from time to time.

on Feb 01, 2014

Thanks for the reminds. Even us pros need reminders from time to time.

+1

on Feb 01, 2014

Good practices are always welcome.  yahoo mail got hacked!   did not know...

on Feb 02, 2014

The best advice is use some common sense. Treat every email as possibly being malicious.

on Feb 03, 2014

Thank you for your daily dose of healthy paranoia

Also check the complete links when you hover over the text. If it points to a website with only numbers in it, then it's most certainly spam. Avoid it.

Also, do not visit porn sites

Also do not visit sites with annoying interfaces with lots of agree buttons. I got scammed a few euros that way, because I bought too many things that I did not want to buy. It was only a few euros but I was appaled by how easy it was to get scammed that way. I decided to block my VISA card immediately after that (for online payments) and never used it again.

 

on Feb 03, 2014

GeomanNL
Also, do not visit porn sites

There would be no Internet without porn sites...

And we would all have been using Beta instead of VHS if there had been no porn movies.

 

Couple of quaint, interesting facts for you...

on Feb 03, 2014

It's unfortunate you didn't understand what I meant by:

Also, you can ‘mouse over’ the link. Look at the true url which will appear. If it doesn’t look like that software’s url, report the email as a phishing attempt.

I assume that's because of language difference.

on Feb 03, 2014

You're right, didn't need to repeat that. I've drawn a big fat line through that part of my reply

 

on Feb 05, 2014



Quoting GeomanNL, reply 5Also, do not visit porn sites

There would be no Internet without porn sites...

And we would all have been using Beta instead of VHS if there had been no porn movies.

 

Couple of quaint, interesting facts for you...

Porn sites?  Finally an appropriate target for the NSAs interest. 

 

on Feb 05, 2014

ElanaAhova
Porn sites? Finally an appropriate target for the NSAs interest.

They probably have them in 'Favourites' already .... gives them something to do...