14 February 2010
5 Tips to detect fishing
20/02/10 11:16 Filed in: General
What is Phishing?
Phishing is the act of using the internet to gain knowledge of private and usually money related information from a ton of people. So phishing is like me asking you for all your credit card information using a good cover.
- If I call you up and tell you that I am with Wachovia Bank and that we are calling to make sure that you did not make certain charges. I ask your account number, expiry date and CVV number (3 digits at the back of the card) to verify that this is you and then tell you the charges have been removed immediately. In the meantime, I have all the info I need to use your credit card on the internet whenever I want ... That was easy. But you say that you do not have a Wachovia account - I say sorry must have the wrong number and move on to the next person.
- Another easy way is the send bulk emails that effectively so that you visit a website and enter information that I want. Check out - http://www.cp-soft.com/wachovia/AuthService.htm. If you enter the username and password and press Login - I thank you cause you just emailed that information to me and I re-directed you to the real wachovia site...
The Tips
- Tip #1: Be very wary of email you get. If you’re really uncertain about an email, you can learn a lot by using the message headers to find out where it got started. No one will ever ask you for your password, social security number or credit card information in an email. It is not safe to send this kind of information in an email because it is not secure.
- Tip #2: Banks, sites like Ebay and Amazon, never never send bulk emails that say something like: Dear Sir (or Madam), your account seems to be... Ebay and the like will always call you by name and direct you to their website to enter your username and password (see Tip #3)
- Tip #3: Check the URLs of the links that you are asked to click on. Earlier I asked you to go to http://www.cp-soft.com/wachovia/AuthService.htm and you saw what you though was the login page for wachovia but look the website you visited was www.cp-soft.com: that should be a big clue. Of course Phishing emails will normally only send you to sites that have an IP address (like: 68.67.234.135) because these sites are up for 5-10 days and then taken down so no one can trace them. So if the site does not match the URL do NOT click on it.
- Tip #4: As well as checking that an email actually sends you to the right website, you can check that it came from the proper place. If you look at the email headers (check your favorite email client to find out how to see the headers). Here are the headers from an email that I received "apparently" from Barnes and Noble:
Received: from mta.email.bn.com ([198.31.62.91]) by ns105.101sitehosting.net with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from <</span>BarnesandNobleEmail@email.bn.com>) id 1IiQZ1-0007q4-W3 for pafortin@cp-soft.com; Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:17:08 -0700
If you check line that says "(envelope-from <</span>BarnesandNobleEmail@email.bn.com>)" you can determine that in fact the email DID come from Barnes and Noble and is most likely authentic. If it had said something like: "(envelope-from <</span>XXX@XXX.XXX>)", most likely this is a fraud email and you can forward it to your ISP for investigation.
- Tip #5: How do you really know that it's really the police department asking for a donation? Ask the person on the phone to send you their requests in writing. You see the postal department is an expert fraud investigation agency while the phone company, well, they are not so good. Frauds and the like will never send anything in the mail for fear of getting caught by uncle Sam.
Conclusion
If you have already provided information in response to an email or filled out a web form that you are no longer sure is legitimate after reading this article, contact your bank or credit card company immediately and have your credit and bank cards changed.
By now most larger corporations have been the object of some phishing scam remember that they are also the victims and that they are willing to help you with these problems so call them report it and they will help you and also do their own investigation which hopefully will lead to some arrests.
Have a great day and practice safe surfing...
Paul/
Paul Fortin is the founder of Coding Junky and is the main junky. Paul has over 25 years of experience with computers and software and has lead many teams to successful project completions.
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Site Redone and Blog Created
20/02/10 00:03 Filed in: General
Well, here it is, coding junky’s new site and blog. It will be a great combination to be able to come to one place to make your computing needs simpler and easier to use.
I have to give kudos where kudos are due, I used an application called RapidWeaver to design and upload this new site and I was very impressed by the polish and ease of use of this application. Unfortunately for you Windows and Linux users it’s only available on the Mac.
In the next few days, I will be importing other blog posts to this one so that all my bloggings are in one place. Since I blog about stuff that I have done and sometimes repeat, it will help me find it again as it will be consistently in one location, The Coding Junky’s Blog
Paul/
Paul Fortin is the founder of Coding Junky and is the main junky. Paul has over 25 years of experience with computers and software and has lead many teams to successful project completions.