Don’t Click Under any Circumstances

This week I have been a near victim of two attempts at identity theft and I want to remind all of you that you should never, click on any email that comes from a major company, no matter how authentic it may look.

Here are the basic tips that are worth repeating:
1. The Phishers are getting really good at making you think they are the real deal, but don’t trust anyone. If you are someone like myself, you can spot these forgeries by the obviously incorrect email address, but generally speaking I still won’t click. Common forged emails look like they come from PayPal, Amazon, and many banks. If you are ever unclear, just log-in to the site without using the email links. If these businesses are really looking for you, it will be in your account information.

2. MySpace is not YourSpace. Don’t click on inline images or videos in your MySpace comments posts.
This one was a new one for me since I am a MySpace newbie. This week an actual real MySpace friend of mine was Phished for her MySpace password and left what looked like a porn video on all her friends comment areas. It was actually a small jpeg of a video screen-shot showing a scantily clad, doe-eyed babe, lunging at the screen. (I know…)

Normally I wouldn’t click on this but since the comment looked like it came from a film-maker friend of mine with a healthy sense of humor I suspected it was something funny. Well, after clicking, I was asked to log-in to MySpace. I never even bothered to check the URL since I assumed I was on MySpace. This was just a clever way of gathering MySpace log-ins, as we found out later when my friend was notified by her 14 year old niece that she was getting slammed with porn postings. (It’s good to have 14-year old friends nowadays.)

Fortunately, I was able to change all account settings before any of my friends were porn-ified, or worse.

Be vigilant people the web is full of trash. Be careful of your surroundings, change passwords regulary, report suspicious behavior and when in doubt, Don’t click!