May 29, 2009

Internet Rule #1 – A Reminder


It seems that some of us keep forgetting the internet rules of thumb. And no it is not the “don’t give your real contacts to anyone online”. It is the rule about never receiving a file that you don’t know its sender. And never receive an executable even from your best-est friends. It is the rule of never enter your email password on any site other than your email provider site.

It is the rule of staying safe and secure online.

You don’t give your password(s) to anyone and you don’t enter this password(s) anywhere. You don’t give anyone your credit card number (or your bank details if that matters)online and always use a secured and verified way to your online payments. And it is strongly recommended to dedicate only one card for the online purchases with a very low credit limit. (You are not buying diamonds online!)
And if anyone is wondering why I am posting such a reminder now, it is because I keep receiving emails that scream “someone has been owned” like this one

“Dear friend:
i would like to introduce a good company who trades mainly in electornic products.Now the company is under sales promotion,all the products are sold nearly at its cost.They provide the best service to customers,they provide you with original products of good quality,and what is more,the price is a surprising happiness to you!It is realy a good chance for shopping.just grasp the opportunity,Now or never!
The web address: (www.) bolocn.com”


How would anyone know that such emails are fake, ( forget about the spelling mistakes because most of us won’t even notice but if this is a real promotional ad, the company would have at least used a word processor and revised the spelling mistakes!)

First the subject is vague, “Dear Friend, A business Opportunity … etc”. None of your friends will use such a subject line. But assume that they might do. And assume that you like the content of the mail and you are so tempted to follow that link. Please, please, please. I beg you to ask google 1st about that site. It is simple and idiot proof, you copy the link and paste it to google and press search. You might be amazed by the results. In the previous example, the search result should have returned a company’s home page but it actually returned nothing but people screaming that their accounts have been stolen and that the owners of this site have emptied many bank accounts.


Please, stay safe. The internet is just like a street; will you ever give someone in the street your bank details?!





2 comments:

Haz said...

but sadly, there do exist people who succumb to this. ouch!

Shimaa Gamal said...

Yeah, it is so sad. Lots of my friends fell for it.