professional business and website writing services by a professional writer business writing, website writing, press release writing, or any other writing service.
Kelley Rao, who is the president of the web design firm Webeze, wrote an exceptional article on the topic of Phishing. I liked it so much I wanted to share it with you.

Phishing for Trouble

By Kelley Rao

By now you've probably not only heard about the scam known as phishing, but have likely been the recepient of one or more of these emails, such as:

We suspect an unauthorized transaction on your account. To ensure that your account is not compromised, please click the link below and confirm your identity.

or

During our regular verification of accounts, we couldn’t verify your information. Please click here to update and verify your information.

If you're one of the 86+ million users of PayPal, you might also receive this message:

Dear PayPal Member,

It has come to our attention that your PayPal Billing Information records are out of date. That requires you to update the Billing Information. Failure to update your records will result in account termination.

What's scary, besides the fact that people are falling for this scam, is that these emails appear to come from a valid source (ie.service@paypal.com or memberservice@chase.com) and the email itself is very official looking, logo and all. It's easy, and sad, to understand how so many people can be duped into giving highly confidential information to these unscrupulous folks.

A Perfect Phishing Spot

So, how do you know if the email you're receiving is legitimate or a scam? Let's look at a couple of emails I recently received:





They look very authentic, don't they? (Though poor grammar and typographical errors are often a dead give-away it's spam). But just hover your mouse over one of those links in the email and instead of seeing a valid URL such as https://www.paypal.com/ you'll see something more along the lines of this:

http://70.29.248.58/us/cgi_bin/Account_Verification

Or even something as convoluted as this:

http://chaseonline.chase.com.sofitspb.ru/.mnb/index.php?
prospect_nfpb=trueportlet_change_1_action
OverrideFchaseonlineFchangeFverifyDetails_
windowLabel_portlet_change_pageLabel_page_change"
target=_blank

But really, the easiest way to know if it's spam or not is to look at the Internet Headers of the email message. In Outlook (sorry, I don't know how this works for other email clients), with the message open, click on View > Options. The very first line will tell you who the email is really from (although it's usually pretty criptic itself).

Check out these examples from the same emails referenced above:





Don't Be A Victim

As with any email you receive that appears to be suspicious, when in doubt, don't open, don't click, don't forward -- just delete it! The rule of thumb that unless you know the recipient or it's from a trusted source, you're better off not opening the email. And don't forget to have a good anti-virus program installed and that you keep it up-to-date.

Here's some great advice from the FTC:

  • If you get an email or pop-up message that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply. And don't click on the link in themessage, either.
  • Use anti-virus software and a firewall, and keep them up to date.
  • Don't email personal or financial information.
  • Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them
  • Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails
  • Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov
  • If you believe you've been scammed, file your complaint at ftc.gov.
We highly recommend you read the entire article here: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/phishingalrt.htm

by Kelley Rao, Webeze

(c) Webeze 2006, All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link and email link. Please also notify us where the material will appear.



Back

Professional press release writing services for your business.