A lot of us are already well familiar with the annoyance of spam: unsolicited e mail advertisements. In recent years, unwanted emails have evolved in an attempt to avoid increasingly advanced filters and wary recipients. We have put together a list of red flags to help you quickly spot e mails that may be harmful to your computer and your bank account.
Suspicious attachments
Attaching files to an email is a fast and easy way to share files with your friends and family. The unfortunate downside is that unscrupulous spammers can attach files such as viruses and trojan horses in the hopes that an unwary recipient might download the file and infect their computer. Any time you receive an email with an attachment that you weren t expecting, be cautious about opening the attachment or even opening the email.
Links that don t make sense
In an email that claims to be from Yahoo, a link to a specific page on Yahoo s site appears. So why does the text of the link not begin with http://yahoo.com ? Because this is a scam. Many scammers attempt to gain account information or even credit card numbers by pretending to be respectable websites asking for information about your account. These emails will typically have a link to a page where you can reset your password, confirm your credit card information, or log in to access some special new feature. To spot these bad links, you will need to look at the url: the address of the page that is being linked to. All urls begin with http:// or htpps:// and from there vary from website to website. If the url isn t visible in the link, you can hover the mouse over the link and see the url in the lower left corner of your web browser.
Notifications about accounts you don t have
Virus spreading emails that disguise themselves as emails from major websites are banking on their recipients actually having accounts with that website in the first place. If you get an email notice about your facebook account when you never even signed up with facebook, chances are pretty good that this is a scam or virus email.
Password reset requests you didn t send
One of the most common phishing emails currently is the fake password reset. These emails claim that you recently requested a new password, and direct you to a webpage where you can enter your old account name and password. You may be able to spot these emails by the link urls or because you don t have the account that you would ly be resetting a password for in the first place. Even if you don t see anything suspicious with the link or the account information, never respond to a password reset email that you didn t specifically request.
Sender addresses that don t add up
An official email from YouTube.com should be sent from an account that ends with @youtube.com. If vanessa1997@aol.com is sending you vital updates about your YouTube account, it s a safe bet this is also a malicious email. If your email system hides sender information, you can change your settings to show full headers or usually click a link right in the email to show all of the sender information.
Money transfer plots
Frequently sent from Nigerian doctors or businessmen, these emails claim that there is some obscene amount of money sitting in an account somewhere that the sender wants moved to the United States before something happens to it. It s not unusual for these emails to be all in caps lock and poor English, although there are exceptions. These emails are scam attempts, attempting to get your bank account information so that the sender can access your funds. No matter the pretense for the email, you should never share bank account information with anyone you don t know. Newer varieties of these emails claim to be from a member of your church.
Suspect emails from friends
The most dangerous and difficult to spot malicious emails are the ones sent by your friends and other contacts. Usually if you get a suspicious email from a friend or co worker, it s either because their PC has been infected or because their email account has been compromised. If you find an email from one of your contacts that has strange characters in the subject, has attachments that you weren t not expecting, links to a file sharing site, or otherwise looks different from the emails you re used to from that person, take the time to contact them before clicking on any links or downloading any attachments.
Emails from yourself (that you didn t send)
These kinds of emails can be disturbing when you find them. If you find an email from your own account sitting in your inbox that you know you didn t send (and you have not granted anyone else access to your account) immediately change your password and security question for your account. After that, check out your sent mail folder to see if any other emails went out that you were unaware of. Let everyone who received one of these suspicious emails know that you did not send the emails, that they shouldn t open them or open any links or attachments and that you suspect your account was compromised. You can also let your email provider know about your concerns. If this problem recurs, your system may be infected and require virus cleanup service.
As users and email filters become more aware of these malicious emails, scammers will develop new schemes to get at your computer, bank account, and other information. The best weapon against these attacks is a healthy dose of skepticism, though even cautious users can fall victim to scams and viruses. If you believe you may have a compromised email account or infected computer, or if you just want to learn more about how to prevent these problems, give Geek Choice a call at 1 800 GEEK HELP (433 5435). We can help you with Virus Removal, Spyware Removal and general computer repair.
Author Resource:
Gregg Housh holds the position of Technician Manager at Geek Choice. At Geek Choice we solve computer problems such as: http://www.geekchoice.com Slow computer, http://www.geekchoice.com/virus-and-spyware-cleanup.php Virus Removal, http://www.geekchoice.com/virus-and-spyware-cleanup.php Spyware Removal, Computer startup problems, Printer not printing, and much more.
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