Old stuff

May 10, 2007

Old stuff

http://orbofzot.blogspot.com/ was the old blog. That account has been terminated, but the blog remains. I’ve brought over anything worth keeping. Goodbye Blogspot, you whore.

Godzilla

BASIC

Phishing Scams and Email Spoofs

How Not to Get Hooked by a ‘Phishing’ Scam

I get so many phishing scam emails, I wonder how many people get caught?

‘Phishing’ is a technique used by scammers and spammers to trick you into giving away your private information. The criminal will send you an email requesing information, like your user name and password, bank account number, Social Security number, or whatever. The scammers will insist that the need for this information is very urgent, usually giving some very persuasive reason to make you feel compelled to comply with the request. The trick is that the email looks very professional, and looks authentic enough to fool many people.

Usually, the phishing email will impersonate a page from PayPal.com, eBay.com, or another website you know and trust. Some of these forgeries use official logos from right off the website they are imitating. Even seasoned internet users may be hard pressed to distinguish a fraudulent email from a real one.

The links in these emails almost never point to the real website. For example, the address to login to PayPal begins with https:// , but a fake link probably points to an address beginning with http:// . The ’s’ in https:// is important, because it means your communication with that site is encrypted to protect the information you transmit to it. As a rule of thumb, don’t enter private information into a web page that doesn’t have https://

Even if an address starts with https://, that doesn’t necessarily mean the site is safe. I’ve read that some phishing emails contain https:// links even though they go to a scam server. Don’t use https:// as a basis for trusting a website, but do use common sense about the institutions you trust on the internet.

Reputation can make or break an internet business, so honest companies will do whatever they can to earn your trust. Carefully read the privacy and/or security policy of websites you trust, and understand what to expect from them. No responsible internet firm will ever ask for your password, or bank information in an email.

For more information about phishing and other scams, check these links:

Posted by TelengardC64
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