I recently received an e-mail about my charge card. Oh no, there have been too many failed PIN attempts! Good thing the e-mail provided a colorful, handy-dandy link button that will send me directly to the bank’s Web site and then I can unlock my charge card…
But here’s the thing: I’ve never had this charge card! This type of unsolicited e-mail is known as “phishing,” which is an attempt by someone to maliciously obtain another’s information.
This message and others of its kind are carefully crafted to stir an emotional response from the receiver. They are sent to as many people as possible, with the hope that it reaches actual customers of the businesses these e-mails pretend to be from. Anyone not aware of this tactic can easily become a victim.
This even happened to me some years ago. I received an e-mail that looked like a normal message notification; basically it said there was a private message waiting for me. Part of the private message was provided in the e-mail. To see the entire message, a response button was made available. However, it linked to a fake clone of the real Web site, which did fool me, and thus got my user name and password.
Here are a several things to remember that will help protect you:
- The first thing is pay attention and read the e-mail carefully.
- Try not to click on links in suspect e-mails.
- Call the business in question to verify validity.
Think you’re too smart to fall for this type of scam? How about testing your knowledge? SonicWall has a phishing IQ test that is fun and you might actually learn something that can keep you out of trouble.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
if you have a paypal account you need to watch for these types of e-mails also!
June 13th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I`ve received different forms of these phishing emails, including a couple that were supposedly from Dell. If you look these emails over carefully and check with the financial institutions you will be much safer. Too many people don`t read them completely and get scammed this way.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I’ve received a few from companies offering me a free Dell computer for testing it out. The other major scam is the overseas lottery scam.
This isn’t computer related but you should also be leary of calls from someone at the jail advising that a family member is sick or injured and that you need to call someone else to find out what is going on. They supply you with a number starting with *72. When you call the number you get some annoying answering machine and hang up thinking you dialed wrong. What really happened was you just transfered all your phone calls to the other number. The scammer calls your number back and gets connected to the person he really wants to talk to while you get the bill.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Thank you very much for your comments and giving valuable information to everyone who reads this blog.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:53 am
I received a phishing E-Mail that had a bunch of links to go to different sites on DELL. I am wondering if Dell has a spoof reporting E-Mail address that these type of E-Mails can be forwarded to?
August 6th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Thanks for asking that question! If you do receive and email that says it’s from Dell but does not end with @dell.com, it’s possibly spam or phishing email. Do not open the email; just forward it to privacy@dell.com.
Thanks again,
Richard B