Excellent New Email Attack

I was very impressed with this wonderful new email attack. I've received emails supposedly from Linked-In and the IRS. They look very official. What makes them so cool, is that they appear to have a legitimate link to the IRS or Linked-In.

You will notice that the link in the message seems to be connecting directly to my linked-in mailbox. However, when I hover over it, you see the actual address on the left, to golestanis.ir which is in Iran! It is then placed in the pavlovian folder.

This is the first time I've seen phishing exploits which use underlining and the blue color to imitate legitimate links, or at least the first time I've noticed it.

Always Hover

This points out a great self-protection rule. Always hover over a link that might not be legitimate to determine where it is really going. Never just click. My email program above (Intellect), shows the real destination in the lower left of the status bar. This is typical, but many programs are beginning to use a box above the status bar. In any case, I'm sure your email program will provide the real destination when you hover.

Date: February 2012

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Home Forms About Current Newsletter subscribe Search All Articles Browse by Category Security Internet Mobile Business Hardware Fun		Excellent New Email Attack I was very impressed with this wonderful new email attack. I've received emails supposedly from Linked-In and the IRS. They look very official. What makes them so cool, is that they appear to have a legitimate link to the IRS or Linked-In. You will notice that the link in the message seems to be connecting directly to my linked-in mailbox. However, when I hover over it, you see the actual address on the left, to golestanis.ir which is in Iran! It is then placed in the pavlovian folder. This is the first time I've seen phishing exploits which use underlining and the blue color to imitate legitimate links, or at least the first time I've noticed it. Always Hover This points out a great self-protection rule. Always hover over a link that might not be legitimate to determine where it is really going. Never just click. My email program above (Intellect), shows the real destination in the lower left of the status bar. This is typical, but many programs are beginning to use a box above the status bar. In any case, I'm sure your email program will provide the real destination when you hover. Date: February 2012 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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