How to detect phishing emails
Phishing is
the act of trying to obtain sensitive information such as usernames and
passwords, credit card details etc. illegally by disguising as trustworthy entity
in the cyberspace.
Most times,
the phishers always present a link to
click on the disguised mail they send out that takes the unsuspecting individual
to their webpage where those vital information are retrieved.
For the
inexperienced and unsuspecting individuals, they are often caught lose guard where
they end up clicking on those links and submitting their details on the
phishers webpage thereby jeopardizing their private and vital information.
Cyber
security is an individual measure to take and it is always advisable for web
surfers to maintain 100% consciousness in all their online dealings, especially
those who carry out online businesses and have lots of account with online
companies.
Today’s
topic will be centered on my recent and personal experience on an unsuspected
phishing mail, so you too can easily take a cue from it and on how I was able
to finally detect that the mail was from a cyber-phisher.
Yesterday, I
received an email (phishing email) in my Yahoo account inbox, and as usual, at
first, it never occurred to me that something fishy was just sent to my inbox,
and the phisher only succeeded in sending fears down my spines and kept me
perturbed through the momentary ordeal with the content of the email which was purported to come from Yahoo.
The mail
goes something like this “That I have
violated the Yahoo Terms of Service and that I stand the risk of losing my
Yahoo account in the next 24hours if I fail to confirm my Yahoo Terms of Service”. And now, the link in there for me to
click was Confirm Yahoo Terms of Service.
After
reading, I checked to see the sender, and it was actually from Yahoo (purported
Yahoo), and with Yahoo image-like content in the mail, I was shocked to the teeth
and was tempted to click on the confirm Yahoo Terms of Service in order for me
to safe my account from being deactivated as purported.
For me, my
Yahoo account means a lot to me and I can’t afford the chance to see my Yahoo
account just go like that.
I paused on
that process without taking any action and started pondering on how I have used
my Yahoo account over the last few days, whether I have truly done something
that was against Yahoo Terms of Services, but in my bewilderment and reasoning,
I was not able to figure out any illegal activity on my part, but I was still
tempted to click on the purported TOS confirmation link.
After
sometimes, and because of my wealth of online experiences, the idea immediately
came to my mind that this might be a phishing mail, I turned and asked a friend
who was there with me when I opened the mail, if he had received any such mail
before, and he said no.
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I now
decided to carry out thorough investigation on the source of the mail and went
through the mail again, lo and behold, I was able to detect it was a phishing
mail.
Here are the parameters I used to figure out that it was a phishing mail and not truly from Yahoo as purported.
==> I
went through my old mails to retrieve a mail previously from Yahoo in order to
compare with the purported Yahoo mail I received yesterday, and I was able to
figure out a lot of discrepancies from the purported Yahoo mail.
I took time
to observe the sender name, which was Yahoo, and then I now have to check out
the text font in which the Yahoo was written and noticed that it
was entirely different from that of the original
Yahoo.
= =>
Again, I noticed that the original Yahoo mail, came with a tiny Yahoo image snippet just by the side of
the Yahoo sender, whereas there was no such image snippet on the purported
Yahoo sender mail.
= => I then
went again to read in between the lines on the purported Yahoo mail, and I was
able to figure out some spelling errors, about 5 wrongly spelt words, but you
will hardly find such numbers of errors coming from original Yahoo mail.
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It was after
those observations that it became clear to me that I was dealing with a
phishing mail and my perturbed mind regained phlegm, then I immediately
reported the mail as spam and it was removed as usual.
Now this is
the 28th hour and counting and my Yahoo account is still very active
against the purported 24hour ultimatum to deactivate my account and I want to
boldly say that there is no single cause for alarm or whatsoever at this
moment.
And it is
important to note here that it might not always or necessary come to only your
Yahoo mail box, as other mail providers are not exempted from phishers
Finally, you
can easily take cues from my yesterday’s experience as highlighted above in
order for you to be able to detect phishing mails too whenever you come across
such in your inbox. Together we can keep the cyberspace cleaner and safer if we
circulate these types of messages.
How to detect phishing emails
Reviewed by Edwin Akwudolu
on
11:55:00 AM
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