John Healy's Tech Blog

Tag: Scams

  • PC Security Tips — common tricks

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    PC World’s latest article “How to protect your PC against devious security traps” provides a useful summary of malicious attacks: Phishing Bogus email Fake warnings Out-of-date app exploits Zero-day attacks Port sniffing

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  • Fake Shipping Notifications — an annual email scam

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    Yes, it’s that time of year again. Fake shipping notifications — email messages purporting to be from mainstream shippers (FedEx, UPS, etc.) saying that delivery of a parcel / package was attempted — directing you to open an attachment or click on a link. As pointed out in last year’s post “Holiday Cyber Risks” (December 15, 2013), spoofed emails are all too common this time…

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  • Fake Gift Card Surveys — another email scam

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    Fake gift card surveys. I’ve seen more of these scams the last month or two. The email messages claimed to be from Amazon with “Amazon Coupons” as the subject. Examination of the messages revealed sender addresses having nothing to do with Amazon. Like from amazon@someothersite.com. Encoded (indecipherable) links in the bodies of the messages went to strange sites. Message bodies contained gibberish. These survey scams…

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  • Fake order confirmations — another email scam

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    Fake order confirmations. I’ve seen a lot of these the last couple of weeks. Particularly repeated email messages claiming to be from Costco (Walgreens, etc.) with “Order Confirmation” as the subject. Of course, I never placed any such order(s). Examination of the messages (without actually opening them in an email app) revealed various sender addresses having nothing to do with Costco. Links in the bodies…

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  • Malicious email — warning signs

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    So, you’re careful when looking at your email inbox’s message list. You delete messages from strangers. You delete obvious promotions and ads. Yet, some messages appear okay. You open those messages. Here’re some things to check, as noted in a recent PC World “Three warning signs that email is malicious” article: 1. Dear customer 2. That link is crazy 3. It has an attachment I…

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