Posing as Google, Paypal, Yahoo, etc: Fake Scam emails still going, do you fall for it? Still?
Posted February 16th, 2012 by admin No Comments »
It is 2012- nothing’s changed from Yahoo & Hotmail’s supposed uber spam filtering services.
It is the same as it was say 5 years ago. We are still receiving tons of junk mails on a daily basis and most of it happen to arrive right in our inbox folders. Google’s Gmail isn’t perfect but it detects almost all of the spams!
Today, we received an email on Yahoo Mail in what looked like a letter from Google Adwords. It even managed to have the ‘from’ address set to adwords@google.com. We have an account with Adwords so we opened it. We immediately sensed it was a fake.
First of all, legitimate sites never address their users with a general: “Dear users” or “Dear members”- The mail will always address you with your full name or your username. Secondly, legitimate sites never send out a mail without addressing anybody! In this case, the mail just read:
Your account is about to expire.
In order to remain active, please click the link below and verify your account now.
Thank You, Google AdWords
We Wonder
Since scammers are very much alive on the internet, and fake emails arrive in great numbers, there must be a lot of people who still fall for it and become victims of virus, malware attacks or worse identity theft.
What to do? Can’t really do much other than NOT to fall for it!!! Do not go unrecognized websites! If you are curious, do a Google search on a company site before going directly to the questionable site.
Here are some ways to detect a FAKE email and ways to safeguard yourself on the net:
- Do you recognize the sender? No? Then MARK it as SPAM or Junk and or delete.
- In Doubt? Check the FULL HEADER to see where the mail originated. In this case it says the IP isn’t permitted by Google.com as sender.
Return-Path:
Received-SPF: softfail (transitioning domain of google.com does not designate 212.10.10.11 as permitted sender)
- Check for typos, misspellings, grammatical errors.
Legitimate websites pay a copy editor, a writer, and or a marketing guru to create their emails. They are experienced, highly educated people and are paid to make sure the emails or any reading materials that go out bearing the company brand is free from errors or dead links!
- Hover on the link before clicking it!!
When you hover on a link (place your mouse pointer to the link), the URL of the link will show up at the bottom of your browser. If the email says it came from Paypal. The URL has to show the exact URL of Paypal such as: support@paypal.com and NOT support@pay-pal.com or any variation thereof of the URL.
- You know it’s a scam, DO NOT CLICK ON IT THEN!
You get curious and you click on a link- sometimes that is enough to trigger an attack to your computer. By clicking, you just activated any spyware, malware or tracking beacons waiting to be unleashed on your machine! Some are harmless but annoying, monitoring your habits online so they can send you more junk stuff based on what you sites you visit. They snoop basically. Some are harmful that attacks your registry that upon reboot, your computer will no longer behave as it should and will redirect all your browsing to a set of spam websites.
- If you get a malware or spyware…
Doing a “system restore” will restore your previous computer settings to where everything was working fine. Rather than just “cleaning,” system restore is most effective in clearing up everything to a state before your computer was messed up.
If you had set your machine to have regular restore points, then you can select to a date where you know things were normal and fine. It will not delete your old program installations, however, it will delete any NEW updates or programs created after your selected restore date- so choose your dates carefully. If you have the disc or copy of the new program, then it shouldn’t be an issue, just reinstall it after the system restore and create a new restore point.
TO FIND SYSTEM RESTORE ON YOUR PC, just go to your start menu and type “System Restore” on your search bar. The computer will find it for you. Click on that and start the process. Read and follow instructions.
If you are unable to boot your machine after an attack then you need a computer tech to repair your system.
Be smart. Do not be gullible. If it’s too good to be true then it is!! There is no such thing as ‘free lunch’. This goes way back, from the time our parents told us ‘never talk to strangers’ or ‘never accept candies from a stranger’– it is the same warning! If you don’t know the sender, don’t click on the links!! Simple as that.
