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Of Phishing and Spam

I dont usually use my Yahoo! Mail anymore but still, I occasionally check if there are still important emails arriving at that address. From time to time, I also check the spam folder just incase Yahoo! wrongly classifies an email as spam.


But then again, there are really spam emails and one particular email caught my attention. It was allegedly from Amazon pertaining to an order I made. It was an email receipt for that 'item'.

Click for larger view

There are things that are pretty much obvious for the trained eye but for those people who are a bit clueless, its a big problem.

For example, if you see the complete snapshot above, you could see that my name and my email are spelled wrong. I am not Allan Muigai, nor my email is not allanmuigai@yahoo.com .. Some people might react to this as an innocent typo error.. Well, ITS NOT. If its a typo, the email wont be able to get delivered to your inbox.


Heres another tricky one, when you check the sender.. At first glance, you could tell that the email came from Amazon.. Sadly, those stuff could be faked.


 The last and important bit of information could be checked from the clickable links on the email. When I put my mouse over the Amazon logo, it should be a link going to their official website (http://www.amazon.com) but then again, if you see the status bar, its going to take you to another website.. Which could either be a website planting a malicious software on your computer or a site which looks like amazon and will ask you to log in.


Careful, if you fall for these traps, once you enter your login information.. Your account is already compromised.

Stay safe, the internet is a warzone.

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