Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum

General Topics => Computer Problems & Questions, Virus/Scam Warnings => Topic started by: JohnF on March 31, 2016, 14:38:10 PM

Title: *** Virus/Malware alert ***
Post by: JohnF on March 31, 2016, 14:38:10 PM

There is another virus/malware type of email doing the round again which does a pretty good job of disguising itself as a legitimate marketing email from companies such as Argos, Aldi, Netflix, Tesco etc.  There was a fair bit of publicity over the Aldi one towards the end of last year but it looks like the scammers are now being proactive and changing the stores to confuse folks - saying that, I got two Aldi ones yesterday so thought it worthwhile to remind folks of the dangers of embedded links.

The subject line is either along the lines of "Collect your £100 gift voucher" or "40% off all goods" and appears to come from the retailer with a clickable link somewhere in the email - your virus scanner will not pick this up and will label the email as safe and virus free.  Click the link and there is a high likelihood you will end up with malware, a virus or worse on your machine.

When it's a service such as Netflix, the emails are almost indistinguishable from the real thing - the giveaway is the fact they dont use your actual account name which any genuine notification would.  Same applies to PayPal - they always address you by your account name in any email they send.

Incidentally, smartphones are not immune either. 

Remember:

Never click a link embedded within an email unless you are 100% sure it is genuine.  Look at the email address it is sent from - if you use MS Outlook its at the very top of the email, if you use Gmail simply hover your cursor over the "From", a tooltip will appear letting you see the address it was sent from and by hovering over the link, you'll see where it is trying to send you.  Hotmail/Live/Outlook.com are similar to Gmail except when you hover a link you need to look in your status bar along the bottom of your browser. 

Invariably the links will either ba "shortened" URL such as http://bit.ly/ytnyxp (http://bit.ly/ytnyxp) or some strange looking URL that doesnt bear any relation to the supposed sender.

Every browser/operating system combination acts differently so use your common sense, the above is just a guide, not gospel!

JF

Title: Re: *** Virus/Malware alert ***
Post by: Stuart T on March 31, 2016, 15:08:25 PM

Thank you, John.

Title: Re: *** Virus/Malware alert ***
Post by: scot on March 31, 2016, 20:28:59 PM

Thank's John