Messages asking for personal information !!
Spam comes in a variety of forms, including fraudulent messages. This mass-messaging is called 'spoofing' or 'password phishing.'
Such fraudulent practices involve messages that appear to be from a legitimate source, or the creation of an official-looking webpage that asks you to provide your username and password or other personal information. Such messages or pages could ask for your Social Security number, bank account number, PIN number, credit card number, mother's maiden name, or birthday.
Spammers often ask for this information in an attempt to steal your Gmail account, your money, your credit, or your identity.
Google is currently testing a service designed to alert Gmail users to messages that appear to be phishing attacks. When the Gmail Team becomes aware of such an attack, the details of these messages are used to automatically identify future suspected phishing attacks.
The result: when a Gmail user opens a suspected phishing message, Gmail displays a warning.
Gmail's phishing alerts operate automatically, much like spam filtering. Gmail's spam filters automatically divert messages that are suspected of being unwanted messages into 'Spam'. Similarly, Gmail's phishing alerts automatically display warnings with messages that are suspected of being phishing attacks so that users know to take care before providing any personal information.
You should always be wary of any message that asks for your personal information, or messages that refer you to a webpage asking for personal information. If you receive this type of message, especially from a source claiming to be Google or Gmail, please do not provide the information requested.
Here's what you can do to protect yourself and stop fraudsters:
◘ Make sure the URL domain on the given page is correct, and click on any images and links to verify that you are directed to proper pages within the site. For example, the Gmail URL is http://mail.google.com/ or, for even more security, https://mail.google.com/. Although some links may appear to contain 'gmail.com,' you may be redirected to another site after entering such addresses into your browser.
◘ Always look for the closed lock icon in the status bar at the bottom of your browser window whenever you enter any private information, including your password.
Check the message headers. The 'From:' field is easily manipulated to show a false sender name.
◘ If you're still uncertain, contact the organization from which the message appears to be sent. Don't use the reply address in the message, since it can be forged. Instead, visit the official website of the company in question, and find a different contact address.
◘ If you enter your account or personal information as the result of a spoof or phishing message, take action quickly. Send a copy of the message header and the entire text of the message to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov. If you entered credit card or bank account numbers, contact your financial institution. If you think you may be the victim of identity theft, contact your local police.
◘ Gmail\Yahoo\reiffmail doesn't send unsolicited mass messages asking for passwords or personal information.
Such fraudulent practices involve messages that appear to be from a legitimate source, or the creation of an official-looking webpage that asks you to provide your username and password or other personal information. Such messages or pages could ask for your Social Security number, bank account number, PIN number, credit card number, mother's maiden name, or birthday.
Spammers often ask for this information in an attempt to steal your Gmail account, your money, your credit, or your identity.
Google is currently testing a service designed to alert Gmail users to messages that appear to be phishing attacks. When the Gmail Team becomes aware of such an attack, the details of these messages are used to automatically identify future suspected phishing attacks.
The result: when a Gmail user opens a suspected phishing message, Gmail displays a warning.
Gmail's phishing alerts operate automatically, much like spam filtering. Gmail's spam filters automatically divert messages that are suspected of being unwanted messages into 'Spam'. Similarly, Gmail's phishing alerts automatically display warnings with messages that are suspected of being phishing attacks so that users know to take care before providing any personal information.
You should always be wary of any message that asks for your personal information, or messages that refer you to a webpage asking for personal information. If you receive this type of message, especially from a source claiming to be Google or Gmail, please do not provide the information requested.
Here's what you can do to protect yourself and stop fraudsters:
◘ Make sure the URL domain on the given page is correct, and click on any images and links to verify that you are directed to proper pages within the site. For example, the Gmail URL is http://mail.google.com/ or, for even more security, https://mail.google.com/. Although some links may appear to contain 'gmail.com,' you may be redirected to another site after entering such addresses into your browser.
◘ Always look for the closed lock icon in the status bar at the bottom of your browser window whenever you enter any private information, including your password.
Check the message headers. The 'From:' field is easily manipulated to show a false sender name.
◘ If you're still uncertain, contact the organization from which the message appears to be sent. Don't use the reply address in the message, since it can be forged. Instead, visit the official website of the company in question, and find a different contact address.
◘ If you enter your account or personal information as the result of a spoof or phishing message, take action quickly. Send a copy of the message header and the entire text of the message to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov. If you entered credit card or bank account numbers, contact your financial institution. If you think you may be the victim of identity theft, contact your local police.
◘ Gmail\Yahoo\reiffmail doesn't send unsolicited mass messages asking for passwords or personal information.
!!There is a lot of information out there about securing your email. Much of it is advanced, and doesn’t apply to the typical end user. Configuring spam filters like SpamAssassin, setting up encrypted authentication on mail servers, and email gateway virus scannermanagement are not basic end-user tasks.
When one can find end user email security tips, they’re usually specific to a single mail client or mail user agent such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Mutt. This sort of information is of critical importance to many users of these applications, but there are few sources of more general security information for email users that are not specific to a given client application.
The following is a short list of some important security tips that apply to all email users — not just users of a specific application. They are listed in the order one should employ them, from the first priority to the last. This priority is affected not only by how important a given tip is, but also by how easy it is to employ, because the easier something is to do the more likely one is to actually do it and move on to the next tip.
Tιρ 1.
Never allow an email client to fully render HTML or XHTML emails without careful thought. At the absolute most, if you have a mail client like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird that can render HTML emails, you should configure it to render only simplified HTML rather than rich HTML — or “Original HTML” as some clients label the option. Even better is to configure it to render only plain text. When rendering HTML, you run the risk of identifying yourself as a valid recipient of spam or getting successfully phished by some malicious security cracker or identity thief. My personal preference is, in fact, to use a mail user agent that is normally incapable of rendering HTML email at all, showing everything as plain text instead.
Tιρ 2.
If the privacy of your data is important to you, use a local POP3 or IMAP client to retrieve email. This means avoiding the use of Web based email services such as GMail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail for email you wish to keep private for any reason. Even if your Webmail service provider’s policies seem sufficiently privacy-oriented to you, that doesn’t mean that employees won’t occasionally break the rules. Some providers are accused of selling email addresses to spamming “partners”. Even supposedly security oriented Webmail services like Hushmail can often be less than diligent in providing security to their users’ email.
Tιρ 3.
It is always a good idea to ensure that your email authentication process is encrypted, even if the email itself is not. The reason for this is simple: you do not want some malicious security cracker “listening in” on your authentication session with the mail server. If someone does this, that person can then send emails as you, receive your email, and generally cause all kinds of problems for you (including spammers). Check with your ISP’s policies to determine whether authentication is encrypted, and even how it is encrypted (so you might be able to determine how trivial it is to crack theencryption scheme used).
Tιρ 4.
Digitally sign your emails. As long as you observe good security practices with email in general, it is highly unlikely that anyone else will ever have the opportunity to usurp your identity for purposes of email, but it is still a possibility. If you use an encryption tool like PGP or GnuPG to digitally sign your emails, though, recipients who have your public key will be able to determine that nobody could have sent the email in question without having access to your private key — and you should definitely have a private key that is well protected.
Tιρ 5.
If, for some reason, you absolutely positively must access an email account that does not authorize over an encrypted connection, never access that account from a public or otherwise unsecured network. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Be aware of both your virtual and physical surroundings when communicating via email. Be careful. Trust no one that you do not absolutely have to trust, and recognize the dangers and potential consequences of that trust.
Your email security does not just affect you; it affects others, as well, if your email account is compromised. Even if the email account itself is not compromised, your computer may be if you do not take reasonable care with how you deal with emails — and that, in turn, can lead to affecting both you and others adversely as well.
Don’t be a victim.
