WHAT ALL ONLINE RESEARCHERS SHOULD KNOW: "How You Can Prevent Yourself from Becoming a Victim of Phishing Scams"

Phishing is when some crook sends out tons of "official" looking e-mail, from a supposed trustworthy source, in order to trick you out of your user names, passwords, banking account information, etc.

The e-mail will usually be compelling and have a logical reason for you reenter or confirm your information. Often the e-mail will use the actual copyrighted materials from the company (example PayPal or a bank's logo and graphics with the real "look" of the company).

And most important of all: There is the official looking link that does NOT go where is seems to.

If you do click on the link, the webpage may look very genuine. However, it is getting harder and harder to tell.

So is spyware software the solution to the problem? Not really. I have software tools that root out spyware and viruses, but I still get the phony e-mail messages all the time.

Last month my wife called me because she supposedly got an e-mail from PayPal asking here to verify her account information. She clicked the link in the e-mail and went to a page that looks like the PayPal Web site.

She entered her user name and password. Then, not feeling that things were "not right" she called me.

Let's just say that I was less than pleased because I've warned her about this kind of thing. But, I didn't do a good enough job and didn't really show her WHAT to look for. The message she saw seemed so real. So "official."

Thankfully, there wasn't enough time for the bad guy to get the password. She called me right away. I went to the account--THROUGH the site itself--and changed the password. A close call.

I've been thinking about doing a tutorial on how to avoid this type of thing, but kept putting it off.

After what happened to us, I wanted to make sure that YOU know what to look for and how to deal with this.

Here is the kind of bait that you may see in
your email box from a phisher-type low life:

This is an actual e-mail like the one that got my wife to click on. It looks very official and says all the right things. But here's how you can tell something is very wrong.

THIS IS THE KEY: If you move the pointer finger over the link, you can see the REAL LINK. This is the link that you will really go to and it has nothing to do with PayPal.

If you need to change or do anything with (in this example, PayPal) ANY account or bank or anything to do with money and your personal information--just go to the site itself. Or, e-mail their support staff. These organizations know better than to send e-mail like this in most cases.

YOU have to be very aware and don't be click happy. And for heaven's sake, don't click on this stuff when you get it without investigating the message--or better yet--deleting it..

Here another example from a real e-mail. When the pointer is moved over the link in the e-mail to reveal the real link, you see that it does not go to PayPal.

Now take a good look at this one. It is supposed to be from Wells Fargo bank. I don't have a bank account with them but if the bad guys send out millions of spam e-mails, they are bound to get to some of Wells Fargo's members.

NOTE: Just like before--the link does not go to Wells Fargo, but it does say Well Fargo in the URL. This is a common trick. Part of the name is somewhere in the URL (the Web address) but it is not in the beginning of the URL. Very sneaky.

Did you notice how "real" this message looked?

Look at the links at the bottom of the message. If you look at where they really go, they appear to be real. Maybe they are. But these aren't the important links. The one they want you to click on to get information from you is the false link.

Oh! How wonderful. A family member has sent me a postcard. I just can't wait to see it.

BUZZZZ! Wrong! Thanks for playing.

I don't know what will happen but I know it won't be good. The real URL in this example ends with .exe.

Do you know what this means? An exe file extension (.exe) is the command for EXECUTE. This means that a file will execute, and in these phishing cases, it means that some type of malicious software, spyware, or scumware will be loaded onto your computer. Not good.

So far, I've been showing you e-mail examples from an Outlook e-mail account. Here's how to see the "real deal" if you have an Web based e-mail account (like Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, etc.):

I forwarded the postcard e-mail to my Yahoo e-mail account. Look at this...

Same e-mail message. Same problem. But as I read e-mail on my Web browser, seeing the real URL works a little differently.

When you move your pointer over the link, look at the BOTTOM LEFT HAND side of your screen. The true URL will be displayed there.

Please read and understand this article very well. Share the link to Treasure Maps Web site with a friend and let them learn about genealogy and important computer tips like this.