Dealing with Emails

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These are some general knowledge regarding treating email scams:

• Don’t always assume that the email address is always from the originator. Some phishing emails are sent using fake addresses of known (large) companies or corporations.

• No legitimate sites would ask you to provide your USERID and
  Password over an email. This is especially important for Banking
  accounts, Merchant accounts, etc.

• Do not click on the links or open the pictures of any email that looks suspicious (e.g. unknown sender, funny messages, etc). E.g. the link may say “Click Here”, and if you check the source code, there is actually a string of data being sent to the hacker’s site. Codes can also be attached to digital photographs, so do not open them unnecessarily.

• If you think that the sender is genuine, visit the website directly from
  the browser and DO
  NOT click the link on the email. There was once my Credit Card was
  Really outdated and I received a warning message from the Real Ebay. As
  a habit, I simply open my browser and type “ebay.com”. (Note: this does not apply to those verification links on email, e.g. when you sign-up for a service or forum)

• The basic thing which I learnt from my Certified Ethical Hacker Course is always install a good and updated Anti-Virus software. It is recommended to install firewalls and spyware detectors, e.g. from Norton AV 2006, McAfee or ZoneAlarms. These have become a a necessity, just like the lock and alarm system in your house. The more places they cover, the better the quality, the more secure is your PC.

• Any emails asking you to invest money for high returns is crap, as it never happens. Howevr, DON’T delete the email IF the sender is an old friend you knew for the past 10 years and he owns several islands off the coast of Dubai.

• Any email telling you that you have won a lottery is a complete joke. If you believe it, you might make it to the News Headline… not as a lottery winner but as a poor man cheated of all your money.

• Any email asking for any personal and financial information is completely crap.

• Make it a habit to handle your emails with care. Most of our emails these days are at least 50 – 80% spams. My habit these days are (1) Look at Sender, (2) Look at Subject, (3) just One look at the email to Confirm, and finally, delete.

By the way, my wife still reads through entire spam mails and complains about the content. *yawn*, no wonder the spam mailers still exist after 10-year-old world wide web. It will still work some times.