Avoiding fraudulent email

13. Believing you won the lottery … and other scam titles. Spammers use a wide variety of clever titles to get you to open emails which they fill with all sorts of bad things. New email users often make the mistake of opening these emails. So in an effort to bring you up to speed, let me tell you quickly:

• You have not won the Irish Lotto, the Yahoo Lottery, or any other big cash prize.
• There is no actual Nigerian King or Prince trying to send you $10 million.
• Your Bank Account Details do not need to be reconfirmed immediately.
• You do not have an unclaimed inheritance.
• You never actually sent that "Returned Mail".
• The News Headline email is not just someone informing you about the daily news.
• You have not won an iPod Nano.

14. Not recognizing phishing attacks in email content. While never opening a phishing email is the best way to secure your computer, even the most experienced email user will occasionally accidentally open up a phishing email. At this point, the key to limiting your damage is recognizing the phishing email for what it is.
Phishing is a type of online fraud wherein the sender of the email tries to trick you into giving out personal passwords or banking information. The sender will typically steal the logo from a well-known bank or PayPal and try to format the email to look like it comes from the bank. Usually the phishing email asks for you to click on a link in order to confirm your banking information or password, but it may just ask you to reply to the email with your personal information.
Whatever form the phishing attempt takes, the goal is to fool you into entering your information into something which appears to be safe and secure, but in fact is just a dummy site set up by the scammer. If you provide the phisher with personal information, he will use that information to try to steal your identity and your money.
Signs of phishing include:

• A logo that looks distorted or stretched.
• Email that refers to you as "Dear Customer" or "Dear User" rather than including your actual name.
• Email that warns you that an account of yours will be shut down unless you reconfirm your billing information immediately.
• An email threatening legal action.
• Email which comes from an account similar, but different from, the one the company usually uses.
• An email that claims 'Security Compromises' or 'Security Threats' and requires immediate action.

If you suspect that an email is a phishing attempt, the best defense is to never open the email in the first place. But assuming you have already opened it, do not reply or click on the link in the email. If you want to verify the message, manually type in the URL of the company into your browser instead of clicking on the embedded link.

15. Sending personal and financial information via email. Banks and online stores provide, almost without exception, a secured section on their website where you can input your personal and financial information. They do this precisely because email, no matter how well protected, is more easily hacked than well secured sites. Consequently, you should avoid writing to your bank via email and consider any online store that requests that you send them private information via email suspect.
This same rule of avoiding placing financial information in emails to online businesses also holds true for personal emails. If, for example, you need to give your credit card information to your college student child, it is far more secure to do so over the phone than via email.
16. Unsubscribing to newsletters you never subscribed to. A common technique used by spammers is to send out thousands of fake newsletters from organizations with an "unsubscribe" link on the bottom of the newsletter. Email users who then enter their email into the supposed "unsubscribe" list are then sent loads of spam. So if you don't specifically remember subscribing to the newsletter, you are better off just blacklisting the email address, rather than following the link and possibly picking up a Trojan horse or unknowingly signing yourself up for yet more spam.