Paypal & Ebay Spoof Phishing Emails

Theres a fair few emails coming through to me lately (despite my spam blocker) which are fake emails from Ebay, Paypal & Banks. I just want to tell you what to look out for so you avoid giving away your login details or worse.

Some of these emails are getting very professional and I have to have a good look at some of them before deciding they’re spoofs.  Heres some of the things to check:

• Email Logos & Graphics – if these look a bit shabby or pixelated then it might be an indication of a spoof.
• A lot of misspellings and bad english phraseology.
• Direct website links to login to your account are never included in emails from these kind of companies, especially banks so if you see one this could be another indication.
• If you hover over links in the email and look to the bottom left of your screen, browser or email application and look at the ACTUAL location the links refers to and see if its the same as the link in the email. Often the address will be different when it shouldn’t be.
• Check the senders email address. To do this (in outlook express) right-click on the email and select ‘properties – details tab’ then scroll down to the “Return-path”, “Received from” and “From” lines and make sure these display the actual email address of the institution and not some random one.

These tips are good for any email purportedly from a legitimate source and requesting your personal details and which you might be suspicious of.

And remember also, you can’t win any lotto you havn’t entered!!

Leon.