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Detecting Phishing E-mails
Written by Tony Vrolyk on January 25, 2012, 1:34 pm
Phishing emails ebb and flow but they do seem to be on the rise recently. In case you don’t know already, a phishing email is a message pretending to be from someone you trust in order to get you to provide them personal information like login credentials or account information.
These message can look very legitimate and the message often convey urgency making the recipient feel like they have to react or their account will be closed or their shipment won’t be received. However, if you take a breath and look closely at the message there are some simple things you can look for that will tell you if this is the real thing.
Dead giveaways
Look for typos, misspellings, bad grammar and other obvious errors. Authors of these messages are rushed to get their message out before security software is updated to catch it, so they will often include errors in the text. Also, many of them come from overseas where they don’t speak English as a first language and they don’t take the time to translate correctly.
If the message purports to come from a company you have dealt with before, ask yourself if the message looks like the legitimate ones you have received in the past.
Further detective work
If those clues don’t give it away then ask yourself a few questions about the message:
- Do I have an account with this company? If you don’t have an account they wouldn’t be emailing you.
- Did I recently conduct business with them—place an order, ship a package, etc.? If not then they shouldn’t be emailing you except for advertising messages
- Did I receive this message at the email address that the account is registered to? If they are emailing you at work but you normally deal with them though your personal email this is probably fake.
- Is there an attachment? Legitimate senders almost never include attachments. Event order for electronic items direct you to their site to download the files. This is a big red flag.
- Are the links pointing to the right place? Move your mouse over any links without clicking and in most cases the true address behind the link will be displayed. If it doesn’t point to the correct domain name the message is probably a fake. Sometimes the address will have the correct domain name embedded in the address. However a domain like “amazon.com.A23Sdg.ru” is not amazon.com. In that example the actual domain is A23Sdg.ru—a definite fake.
- Is the sending address from the correct domain? If an email supposedly from Amazon.com comes from an address like boundsmxy762 @siaminet.com you can be sure it is a bogus message. The same for any other domains.
- Was this message sent to multiple people? Check the To: and Cc: field. Phishers will often send the message to lots of people but if it was a legitimate message about your account it would have been sent only to you.
- Is the product in question in the subject line? i.e. “Your amazon.com order for Kindle Fire has shipped.” In the case of product orders this wouldn’t make sense since a customer could have placed an order for multiple items. The real sender would not have put the product name in the subject but rather in the body of the message.
Remember: the DELETE key is your friend
So what do you do with the message? Assuming the answers to the above questions point you to a bogus message, you should delete it right away.
If you still aren’t sure and think it could be a legitimate message, don’t click any links or open any attachments. Instead, go to the company’s website manually by opening your internet browser and typing in their web address. From there check your account status, order status or read any message you have been sent.
About Tony Vrolyk
Tony started with Ticomix in 2008, 10 years after his first IT job with Market Dimensions who was later acquired by Ticomix. Prior to Ticomix, he was the network administrator and database programmer for over 7 years with two local companies: The Pension Specialists, Ltd. and Midwest Life & Health Group, LLC. He continues to provide service to The Pension Specialists, now a Ticomix client, as well as a number of other client with a wide variety of systems and needs. He obtained his CompTIA A+ and Network+ early in his career and recently completed his Microsoft Certified IT Profession (MCITP) Server Administrator Certification.
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