Vigilant Netizen - How to avoid being scammed.

Newmail

By now you know how much I dislike spam and unsolicited messages. I have even more dislike for scammers who trick people into giving away their own and friend's confidential information, often emails, age and if you have put in the details on sites like facebook - most of that information.
 
Spam

Usually the scam starts with a message that seems to originate from a friend, and has a link to some awesome website that they want you to see right now. Don't fall for it!

It's nice that I can guess from the text accompanying a link whether the real person sent it to me or if their account has been compromised and it is a scam. How? A combination of various factors, some I can specify; others too fuzzy for even me to figure out. But I'm putting down some points with a hope it might help some of you stay away from these 'phishing' scams.

Scamemail

Now assuming you got a message, tweet or an email from a friend/colleague/relative:

  1. Does this person usually talk to you in an informal tone? Is the email unusually polite? Or is it the opposite?
  2. Pay attention to the vocabulary: some people use certain words to describe things, are they missing?
  3. Do you really think this person would send you this message?

If anything seems even a bit off, I usually reply back and ask if they intended the message for me. While replying, pay attention to the 'reply-to' email. Or better, give a call and confirm before clicking any links.

Writing_styles

If you are wondering why so much paranoia, let me clarify - I'm the least paranoid person you might meet, I just pre-empt avoidable threats by being alert.
Paranoia

Now for something even more important - I have had a track record of never having my accounts compromised by viruses, worms, or phishing scams, so it may happen you trust a communication from me and open the link in good faith - don't! We have no guarantee that this track record will stay this way forever - always check for clues that I intended you to really check the link.

I will usually accompany the link with a clear description of why it matters to _you_. It will not be a generic 'hey, check this out'. It will be more on the lines of "This link is about […] and since you were talking about […] few days ago, here's something interesting on the same topic […].

Along with detailed information, I tend to use other languages than English when I know you understand them.

There are peculiar hints you will notice when I send you links (on rare occasions) which I won't disclose here, but you'll notice when you see them a few times. Anyway, if you think I sent you a link to some website and you are not sure - feel free to reply or call me and ask if I really did. It is far more embarrassing to deal with the result of a phishing attack - when the scammers send out emails posing as you. And if I am a victim some day - I'd like to know at the earliest to initiate damage control!

Snake

P.S. I like silly illustrations. Reminds of good ol' days of scribbling in my notebook instead of copying lines from textbook dictated by professors ;-)

Tagged awareness spam
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