14 DAY TRIAL // Another “make money” spam campaign is circulating on the Internet, taking over the inboxes of unsuspecting internauts whose friends' accounts were phished.
In the past couple of days I received a lot of emails from my friends in which they were urging me to check out a fantastic money making program.
Since all of the emails had the same body, I realized something must be fishy so I decided to ho ahead and investigate. Once I clicked the link I was presented with a website that almost perfectly replicates a News Daily 7 page, on which an article was posted about a mum that makes $10,000 (7,000 EUR) by working from home.
McAfee's SiteAdvisory “found potential suspicious behavior on this site which may pose a security risk.”
Since every link on the page takes users to a site where they can sign up for the fabulous offer, in the end, the crooks might request money for enrollment in the program or they might simply ask for some information which they can use to phish out their bank account.
So let's see how you can predict that such a website is bad news.
Besides the fact that such websites are always selling lies, a clue that gives away its true identity is represented by the large number of redirects.
Secondly, all the links on the site take you to the same page, so even if the website is a perfect replica of a genuine domain, the name in the browser's address bar and the validity of its internal links can always give away its nature.
Also, if your friends alert you that you're sending them such messages, it means your account was phished and you should immediately change the password to all your accounts that share the same set of credentials.
Finally, stay clear of any suspicious links, even if they seem to be coming from someone trustworthy.