Beware of Suspicious Email

This came from my archives received from Metrobank. I think this is worth sharing to all my readers here. It is just a month ago that I have seen in Yahoo Groups that somebody lost his money due to phishing. So I am sharing this information thinking that it might help you in the future.

Some things worth remembering when you receive suspicious e-mails:

1. Be wary of clicking on links in email messages. Avoid clicking on any link on an email message unless you are very sure of the destination. Phishing usually are links contained in email messages and when you click on the link it will often take you directly to a phony site where you could unwittingly input your personal or financial information.

2. You can visit the Web site of the company from whom the e-mail appears to be from and take the time to notify them of the suspicious e-mail. Many companies do want to know if their company name is being used to try and scam people, and you’ll find scam and spoof reporting links within some of these Web sites.

3. Another important thing to realize is that no legitimate business will ever send an e-mail asking for sensitive personal or financial information. No legitimate company would do this unless they would be essentially giving its customers a heck of a good reason to take their business elsewhere! It’s just bad business.

4. Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.

5. Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them. These files can contain viruses or other software that can weaken your computer’s security.

6. Do not enter personal or financial information into pop-up windows it is a common technique of phishing to launch a fake pop-up window when someone clicks on a link in a phishing email message. To make the pop-up window more convincing it will be displayed in a window you trust. In any case do not input personal or financial information into pop-up windows since you cannot validate the security certificate of such pop-up windows. Please close these immediately by clicking on the X button on the upper right hand corner.

7. Always check for the security certificate whenever entering sensitive information on a web site. You can check Security certificates by looking into the yellow lock on the lower right of the status bar of your internet explorer (similar to figure below). If the lock is closed this signifies that the web site is using encryption to protect you when you enter sensitive information onto the web site. This symbol may only be present when the web site is requesting you for your information. Unfortunately even the lock icon can be fake. So to increase your safety double click on the lock icon on the lower right corner of your internet explorer (see figure below), it will display the security certificate of the site. The name following issued to should indicate the name of the web site, if not, then it is a fake or spoofed web site.

8. Do type URL addresses directly into your browser or use your personal bookmark. If you need to update account information or your password type the URL address directly in the URL address box similar to the figure below. “