Web security

[DracoM]

I must be getting paranoid.
Any posting I get about bills / accounts / new opportunities from previously trusted sources....
I am more or less regularly trashing them.
Are they phishing expeditions? Will even opening them endanger stuff / seize passwords/ hack etc??

'Going Paperless' was thought to be so convenient - so 'now'. But I am becoming more and more suspicious.

[Pulcinella]

You are (probably) right not to click on any link in such messages, even from a trusted source, but use a trusted website instead if you need access to your accounts etc.
I'm certainly getting more emails from banks etc, but I think that 'in these difficult times' it's their way of staying in touch!
Santander, for example, messaged to say that they were aware that I hadn't used my card in any cash machine for a while.

The information in some of the messages has changed too, and in one credit card case has become more useful, as instead of simply saying that a direct debit payment was about to be taken on such and such a date I'm now told the amount that will be taken too.

[Dave2002]

Santander, for example, messaged to say that they were aware that I hadn't used my card in any cash machine for a while.

I think I may have had that too. About as clever as various government ministers suggesting that traffic flows and police activity in some areas had reduced - for some reason - though things have moved on since.

[Cockney Sparrow]

We've had a few "£500 is being paid from your (credit card - bank - ) to a foreign payee click this link" messages that have defeated the Spam filters. Mts CS declines to leave the poor security (to say the least) of Yahoo for her email address. But our watchwords (imprinted by repetition) are:
1. Don't panic (all too easy - they're designed to make you act on instinct)
2. Don't tell anyone anything in response.
3. Check by using a different 'phone or a different online access
4. If you're half convinced the caller might be genuine, ask them how to contact them - location, section, name etc - or locate the account issue, and then call back on the telephone number on the credit card/bank statement. (After all - are their any providers these days where you get the same person dealing with an issue where you have to go back to them?).

[johnb]

4. If you're half convinced the caller might be genuine, ask them how to contact them - location, section, name etc - or locate the account issue, and then call back on the telephone number on the credit card/bank statement. (After all - are their any providers these days where you get the same person dealing with an issue where you have to go back to them?).

But use a different telephone, e.g. use a mobile if the caller phoned your landline or vice versa. This is important because, as I understand it, the scammer can leave the line open so that when you call back, using the same phone, it is they who seemingly answer the phone, instead people at the phone number you intended to call.

[johnb]

As far as emails are concerned I expect I am out of date now, but:

Turn off any any visualisation pane that automatically views the contents of an email.

Set the email client to only show text. (The version of Outlook I am using will show options to show HTML content and photos if you trust the source.)

[french frank]

I can't think of any occasion when I would respond directly to any information sent by email with a link. I have all the websites I need to use bookmarked, so if an email asks me to 'log in to your account' via a link, I go to my bookmarked page to see what they're referring to.

I've just got a new credit card from the Post Office and I'm impressed. If I use that card via Paypal or directly with the site owner, I get a notification within seconds (i.e. almost instantaneously) of the name of the trader, the amount and the card used. (The card is backed by CapitalOne whose own credit card gets appalling reviews, but I can't say I've had a problem - so far).

I do, rather too often, in recent months, get scam text messages, the latest from HMRC notifying me of my COVID-19 tax rebate, click here to calculate how much you are due. Easily spotted in my case since any rebate I was due on tax paid wouldn't be worth the bother of calculating. I'd never worked out how to forward a text message so I learned something and to my enormous disappointment but nil surprise HMRC responded after a few hours that it was a scam. No fourpence for me But it might have cost me a lot more.

[DracoM]

Thx for advice.

[Bryn]

Beware of logging in to other sites via your FB account, https://www.ricksdailytips.com/dont-...k-credentials/

[french frank]

Beware of logging in to other sites via your FB account, https://www.ricksdailytips.com/dont-...k-credentials/

Even assuming it's a 'genuine' request, I wouldn't be so unfriendly as to share my contact list with anyone else.

[Dave2002]

I can't think of any occasion when I would respond directly to any information sent by email with a link.

So you don't have friends (genuine) who send you links, and you never send any links back to them? You never send photos/image files in emails - or receive any.

That can be overly restrictive. In better times I had one work colleague who would never open any email with a link in. That meant that showing him any work examples always had to be done by printing them off, and walking round to his office.

[richardfinegold]

I have a neighbor who is an IT Professional who advertised for some business in the town here. I Used him to help me set up my NAS about 2 years ago but most of his accounts are small businesses. I had mentioned on the Forum that my streamer had gone awol, and I eventually figured out that the streamer still works but the NAS has disappeared from the network. He said that over the past year malicious hackers have attacked him and were holding all of his customers accounts hostage, and that all of his email accounts were compromised as well. He said he had been working for months trying to fix it but his customers have naturally left him.
At first I was inclined to rehire him to help with my issue. I figured that since I only use my NAS for music what was the big deal--if an Iranian Hacker really wants to steal 38 recordings of Beethoven's Eroica, what the hey---but my wife pointed out that since the NAS is part of our network, and our entire on line life, no way. I don't even want to email the poor guy.
I feel awful for him--what a nightmare--but I'm also wondering if my NAS suddenly going off line is related to one of these attacks or one of the attempted fixes. At this point I am about to write off the whole NAS as not worth salvaging. Perhaps I will rerecord the CDs to hard drive that I don't link the Internet (i.e., no Gracenote, just enter all the data myself).
I think that the past year is a metaphor for the life that we must adapt to on line. We have been bunkered down, wearing masks, crossing the street to avoid even the remotest chance that we might re-breathe a few molecules that have escaped some one else mouth. And for many of us, the initial promise and excitement of the Internet (finding other like minded individuals in this Forum, for example) has now been tempered by the need to quarantine from digital scumbags.

[french frank]

So you don't have friends (genuine) who send you links, and you never send any links back to them? You never send photos/image files in emails - or receive any.

That can be overly restrictive.

Yes, I would modify that by saying that if it's in the context of a conversation I'm having with someone I know, I send and click on links. I was thinking of links from companies: 'Click here to access your account' or similar.

[johnb]

I had mentioned on the Forum that my streamer had gone awol, and I eventually figured out that the streamer still works but the NAS has disappeared from the network.

There are reports of similar disappearances happening as a result of Windows 10 updates (e.g. removing support for the SMB1 protocol), though that might not be the issue in your case. It should be possible to get the NAS visible again.

When did this happen? What is the NAS?

[Dave2002]

Yes, I would modify that by saying that if it's in the context of a conversation I'm having with someone I know, I send and click on links. I was thinking of links from companies: 'Click here to access your account' or similar.

Yes - but even if you do get emails from "friends" you still need to be cautious.

I've noticed two things:

1. Quite a number of genuine emails end up in the Spam folder - this is a nuiisance, and people wonder why one doesn't reply.

2. Then there are these "I forgot to send you this Photo ...." kind of email - ostensibly from a friend. These present a problem. If you are pretty sure they're not genuine, you can bin them straight away without opening them at all. Maybe contact your friend directly to ask if they sent an email recently. Otherwise you can live dangerously and open them, and then DO NOT click on any link inside - check the email id which will almost certainly show "name of your friend" but when hovered over show an email address you've never seen before, probably from a foreign country.

Clicking on the link - even if apparently only an image - may result in all sorts of unwanted actions - or "simply" expose you to porn which you probably still didn't want.