How to Detect a Letter from Internet Scammers | Total Security

Taking into account the specifics of fraudulent attacks and analyzing the experience of the affected users, the experts have developed a special list of phishing message signs. If these signs or elements are encountered, then you need to be wary and think carefully about the possible danger:

1. Doubtful sender address. Here, suspicious suspicions should be aroused by situations:

a letter from a serious organization comes from a free virtual mail service like @ mail.ru, @ yandex.ru, etc. A reputable company can provide itself with a branded mail domain;

messages from individuals with suspicious addresses, for example, 654hotart@babylon.ws or maks1234@gmail.com.

Organizations, services or companies never request personal information by e-mail. Any request for passwords, logins, documents and other confidential information indicates the actions of phishers.

2. The start of the email. When a financial or government organization in the message says "Dear customer!", "Dear user!" or other general phrases, it is highly likely that the letter is from people who started online fraud. All serious organizations in mailing lists refer to their clients by name, as they know to whom, what and why they are writing.

3. The content of the written message. If the letter contains content that uses psychological techniques that encourage quick action and follow the specified link, then you should be vigilant, perhaps this is internet phishing. In such situations, you should go from the browser through the search set to the specified site, and through the means of communication there to clarify the situation.

Helpful advice. It is not difficult to identify a malicious link in a suspicious email. Outwardly, the link often looks normal, but it can translate to a phishing resource. It is necessary to make a simple test - hover the mouse cursor over the link and then the real address will appear, to which the transition will be made.

The nuances of protecting against phishing on the Internet

Of course, the danger from attacks by Internet scammers is serious, however, several protective measures can completely exclude the possibility of such threats. Compliance with these recommendations optimally minimizes the threat from phishers:

install a modern, high-quality antivirus. Top computer security programs are excellent at detecting malicious elements in emails and can scan browsers;

check addresses and links in messages from a little-known sender. It should be remembered that the name of the link may not correspond to its real appearance. You just need to move the mouse cursor over it to display the real address of the transition;

study the text of the letter by content. General phrases of address, orders or intimidating appeals are unacceptable. When phishing on the Internet, such nuances are often present;

use disposable mail to test unknown services. If there are no problems, then you can always create a real account later;

when there is no need to read a large volume of messages from unknown addressees, start a separate browser. So to speak, the browser is exclusively for unfamiliar letters;

do not transmit logins and passwords upon request. Organizations or site administrations will never request such confidential data from users. They have this information in the system;

when you need to follow the marked link, you should not do it from the letter. You should go separately through the browser to the specified site using the search or address bar;

specify personal and confidential information on purely secure, reliable sites. A good sign of the reliability of a resource will be a green padlock icon next to the address bar when you are on a web page;

work with licensed programs and new versions of browsers. The latter point is extremely significant since the developers of web browsers are constantly improving protection schemes and optimizing algorithms for detecting phishing emails;

be always alert, trying to be attentive at all times. Attackers never tire of being creative and introducing new ideas. It is not recommended to open messages at all, the subject of which is clearly extraneous or irrelevant.

What are phishing sites and how to avoid becoming a victim of an attacker?

What is phishing:

Phishing is a type of Internet fraud, the purpose of which is to gain access to confidential user data - logins and passwords, credit card numbers, e-mail, etc.

The bottom line is that the fraudster creates a web page that is outwardly indistinguishable, or hardly distinguishable from the real page, on which confidential information is requested from the user.

A link to a phishing page, as a rule, is accompanied by an enticing description, in the style: "Free gold", "get an instant bonus", "golden stream", "information about new tanks", "the shocking truth about ...", "see what news about …" etc.

Remember, if a message of this kind appears in the course of a normal discussion, you should immediately be wary.

In the case of our project, phishing usually copies the OpenID form. A separate category of scammers sometimes does not complicate their life, but simply recreates the appearance of the portal, promises mountains of gold and asks to simply enter a username, password, as well as the desired amount of gold, etc.

When identifying a phishing site, your best friend is ATTENTION. This authorization page has the following address: Accordingly, any type of address bar other than this template indicates that the resource is fraudulent.

To make sure that you are in front of a phishing site, you can enter any fictitious email address and a random string of letters and numbers as a password. The phishing site will accept the entered data and simply redirect you to another page.

What you need to know to stay safe from phishing:

1) Internet addresses of sites are read from right to left, respectively, the address HTTP: //worldoftanks.ru.forummiratankov.me DOES NOT lead to https://worldoftanks.ru/ this is a subdomain of forummiratankov.In turn, if you enter your login and password on such a resource , You will become a victim of a scam.

To better understand this feature, let's move our eyes to the address bar right now. We see the following HTTP: //forum.worldoftanks.ru/index.php? / Topic / 1107831- The main resource is "worldoftanks.ru", the "forum" tab is the name of the subdomain, while the creator of the resource can assign any name to this subdomain scammers often use it.

2) Never enter your username, password, email address, credit card number and other personal information if the site is opened using the open HTTP protocol (the address with a secure protocol looks like this: https://ru.wargaming.net)

3) Never enter your username, password, e-mail address, credit card number and other personal information until you finally make sure of the authenticity of the Internet resource.

4) Never enter your username, password, email address, credit card number and other personal information if the browser displays you a warning about an invalid certificate or gives you a warning about a fraudulent website.

It should also be noted that a phishing site can copy not only the appearance of our Internet resources but also any other resources, from social media pages (for example Vkontakte or Facebook) to postal services (for example mail.ru), websites of banking organizations and payment systems.

What to do if you find a phishing site:

1) If you find a phishing site, you should immediately notify the owner of the resource, which they are trying to fake. In the case of our project, send an application to the User Support Center, specifying a link to a phishing site. In the case of other resources, you should contact their support team.

If you came across a similar link in a message on the forum or saw a similar link in the signature of one of the participants, then simply use the "Complaint" button to the left of the message.

2) You can contact a hosting provider with a complaint that the resource hosted on its hosting is phishing and serves fraudsters.

3) You can report a phishing site to special services:

Additional security measures:

One of the security measures can be the installation of a plug-in for the Internet browser https://www.mywot.com/ (Available for installation in browsers Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera) This plug-in was created based on the community and shows the level of trust to a particular site. The reputation of a site depends on the ratings given by its visitors-users.

In particular:

After installation, a circle is displayed to the right of the address bar, the colour of which depends on the rating of this resource by other users. Red corresponds to sites with low trust, phishing, scams, etc. Green, in turn, corresponds to proven resources, with a high rating. The grey colour of the circle corresponds to unverified resources or resources that have not been given a sufficient number of ratings to be rated. When you are on the real openID page, you will see a green circle to the right of the address bar.

Over the past 20 years, the Internet has grown into our lives. We use electronic payment services, pay utility bills using Internet banking, conduct business and friendly correspondence. If we do not follow the basic rules of caution, our confidential information can fall prey to fraudsters.

Phishing is one of the types of Internet fraud aimed at obtaining illegal access to confidential user data. According to some reports, back in 2013, 509 of all emails sent by email accounted for one phishing letter. The cost of one phishing attack is up to 2 thousand dollars, and the profits made by fraudsters can reach tens of thousands.

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