Detecting Spam/Phishing
You’ve seen emails with titles like
- UPS Tracking Number 0917799165
- please verify your account information
- Mail Returned.
- Weekly Top News
Do you automatically open these official sounding emails without looking at anything else?
I hope not!
You are setting yourself up for trouble. A few years ago I saw a web professional start filling one of these forms out because she was fooled by how “real” it looked. Luckily, she started paying attention to what she was doing before she hit send and gave someone her bank account numbers.
So what are some of the common warning signs and how can you uncover the truth?
- Very few, if any, companies will ask you for account numbers, any sort of ID numbers, passwords, usernames, etc via email. They keep things on file and assume they are correct. This is almost always a sure sign of spam. If you forget a needed piece of information such as a username or password, they will either:
a) send an email to the email address on file with new instructions to get into their system
b) ask you some questions that you have previously answered that only you should know the answer (and let you in after to answer those questions–they may require you to change your password in the process.) - Do you recognize the sender. If it looks like it might be legitmate but it is questionable, look the “header” information on the email and pay particular attention to the names there. (My last blog has more information on how to retrieve the header information.)
- Account or ID numbers with the wrong numbers with the wrong number of digits or other information that shows the sender was sloppy.
- Does the subject make it look like it is one of many emails on this topic that they send out regularly, such “Top News Stories Today” or “News Digest,” (from your news outlet of choice) “Today’s Tip to Lose Weight” (from your favorite diet service), “This week’s Specials” (from your favorite retailer). In this case, check the headers.