Web Safety NZ New Zealand Internet Safety
How To Detect a Scam. Scam artists have been around a long time, and as new technology evolve, so do the methods scam artists utilise, to prey on their target.
Many email scams have been doing the rounds over the years, and while most of us realise offers of huge sums of money are too good to be true, the criminals have come up with new ways to look for vulnerable suspects.
Phishing emails are those designed to ‘trick’ a suspect into clicking on a link. The link will usually take the person to a page that looks very similar to a business they transact with. It may be their bank, internet service provider, or another institution.
The common thread with phishing emails is this:
• The link site ALWAYS has a site address DIFFERENT to the legitimate one.
An example of this for the ASB Bank may be: http://www.asbbank.com Where the correct internet address for this bank is: http://www.asb.co.nz
By taking extra time and hovering the mouse over the link, the internet address or URL will display for about 10 seconds. This is the key in identifying these scams.
However, it must also be stressed that there are other times whereby the legitimate site may be infected. In this case, the scammer may place a file on the site which could be hard to detect.
An example of this could be: http://www.asb.co.nz/files/temp/banking/trick_file (where ‘trick_file’ is the file that may look like your banking logon page. Again, placing your cursor over the link will identify the location of the site you are about to be redirected to.
Remember, no legitimate business will EVER ask for a user name, password or account number using email.
Phone scams are the latest to hit our shores. We have seen several that may direct us to a site that will help clean viruses on our machine, or similar.
Remember, NO legitimate business will EVER ask you to on the telephone to click on links on the internet, unless you have made prior arrangements with them, such as a legitimate computer support company.
Cold calling requests to access your computer may infect your machine with spyware that has the potential to record passwords. These scam artists are looking for banking account details for financial gain.
