Beware of Phishing Spoof Emails!!!

New Businesses today face several threats to their existence from new age thieves. These are thieves who utilises the internet to scam, steal and defraud the innocent of money and mechandise in several formats.

In several of our online businesses, spoof emails are common and that details a few of the many emails and attempts of online fraud that has been identified.

However, not all of these emails are just trying to buy merchandise with stolen credit cards, some of them are designed to steal account information.

For example, this email was received. For protection purposes, an image of the email was shown here and not live links.

Note well the following:

1.0 Thie email was sent appranelty sent by Canada Post
2.0 The Customer was never addressed by name
3.0 There were live htmp links that appears to look like genuine Canada Post links
The Customer was told to click on the link to prevent a missed package delivery.

However, this is a philshing email and the links are viruses and or spyware downloads that will be downloaded  onto your computer once the link have been clicked on.

Those viruses or spyware downloads will then steal information from your computer and email these out to the sender of the emails. The information stolen will include:-

1.0 All passwords stored in your internet browser
2.0 Banking infromation if stored in the internet browser
3.0 Canada Post login username and passwords
4.0 Other account information stored in your computer.

When that tracking number above was manually placed in Canada Post’s tracking system, Canada Post returned this warning.

Several things can be done to esnure that these emails are not effective.1.0 Never click on emails with live links. Go to the website and manually place the tracking number in to verify the tracking number2.0 Scan your emails with anti-spam software such as Mailwasher Pro . There is a free version and an updated paid verioon.3.0 Use an email client and disable all live links in the email. Email clients like Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird have options to turn off all live html links.4.0 Use two different emails. General emails like yahoo or hotmail can be used for social media site sor where an email is required but the source is not yet well known.5.0 Buy and use an email for business or for associates who will similarly understand the professional use of emails.This allows control over the email settings, and if your email is hacked (and yes, it can happen), then one phone call and your email is back in your control. There are numerous examples of yahoo emails being hacked and the person is afterwards unable to gain access to their account.6.0 Use a Master Password for the internet browser, if possible. Mozilla Firefox comes with a Master Password setting. This will prevent any program from having access to the stored passwords without that Master Password.7.0 Use general vigilance on the internet. If it doesn’t sound right, look right, and feel right, then its probanbly not right.