by Tony Moore
With National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) underway, we’re revisiting articles from last year’s NCSAM series, detailing ways to keep yourself safe online. So check out the second article from last year's series below. And be careful of those links!
Updated from October 17, 2015
You open Outlook or Gmail and find an email from your mom. It’s probably about Thanksgiving dinner, you think. Or maybe she’s passing on one of her infamous forwarded jokes. But the message starts “Dear friend,” and Mom has provided a link to some photos that apparently the two of you discussed at an earlier time. It all seems little odd, but it’s Mom, so you click on the link.
And … now you’ve fallen prey to something known as phishing.
Phishing is an online ploy through which a scammer emails a potential victim with an offer that 1. seems legitimate but isn’t or 2. seems weird and wrong but is coming from an email address the recipient knows and trusts (thanks, Mom).
Once the email is opened, the potential victim clicks on the link provided and then becomes an actual victim when that click starts to download malware. Alternatively, the person clicks through the link and misguidedly provides sensitive personal information (passwords, Social Security number). So be smart and keep these points in mind when you’re online:
If the message is from a company you often deal with, and you think the message may be legitimate but are still wary, go directly to the company's website (i.e., type the real URL into your browser) or contact the company to see if you really need to take the action described in the email message. When you recognize a phishing message, delete the email message from your inbox and then empty it from the deleted items folder to avoid accidentally accessing the websites it points to.
To test your knowledge of phishing scams, look for the upcoming quiz LIS has created. All Dickinson students, faculty and staff are welcome to take part, and a $50 gift card to Best Buy as well as a $25 gift card for the Dickinson Bookstore are at stake.
And two cyber security presentations are on the horizon (and there's free pizza at the Oct. 18 event!):
Please add to your calendar a talk by the Department of Homeland Security’s first principal deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis:
Published September 29, 2016