“You have just received a virtual postcard from a friend!” Email Might Be a Phishing Email
WTF is a Phishing Email?
Phishing emails are fake emails sent by people trying to steal your financial information or identity. Phishing is just what it sounds like: only instead of someone fishing for fish, phishers are going after human catches.
Some phishing emails are disguised as charities looking for a donation after a big natural disaster, other phishing emails will look like an e-card you need to retrieve, but most phishing emails pretend to be from a big bank concerned about your account.
Now, let’s talk about…
Why Phishing Emails Suck
Phishing emails, like “You have just received a virtual postcard from a friend!” Email, generally look authentic, but there are a few ways to realize they’re faker than a chest on a Playboy bunny.
- Scare tactics: Most phishing emails will tell you that your financial account has been closed and you need to take immediate action to restore it. If you have reason to think an email like this is real, type your bank’s website address into your browser. Never click any of the links an email like this.
- Fake hyperlinks: Phishing emails will show you a hyperlinked URL that, if you click it, sends you to a completely different website. It’s at this scam website–which may look pretty real except for the revealed URL–that phishers usually try to capture your login information.
- Domain name forgery: Once you click this link and get taken to the phishing website, sometimes even then you can’t see the real URL of the site–it may be disguised with javascript to read like a trusted domain (for example, the phishers might use code to make your browser display www.trustedbank.co.uk, when you’re really visiting www.damnscam.co.uk/trustedbank-phishing.htm).
- Images instead of text: Phishing emails sometimes use a graphic of text instead of actual words, so that they can bypass your spam detectors. Remember that pretty V1AGARA or C1ALIS picture you got recently?
- Undisclosed recipients: The better phishing emails don’t make this mistake, but a lot of times phishing emails will spam a ton of people at once and leave the “To:” section reading “undisclosed recipients”–even though the email is supposed to address your account in particular.
Did “You have just received a virtual postcard from a friend!” Email use these moves to try to scam you?