Other email traps to watch out for

Virtually any message that is unexpected should be treated as suspicious.
One of the most successful virus emails was entitled Pictures of you from the weekend, and implied that there were photos attached. Many people were too curious for their own good, and copped a load of malware when they tried to see the pictures.

Offers of money or benefits from foreigners (or Aussies for that matter!). Delete!

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Requests to confirm or change your password for anything, especially from a bank or financial institution. Real banks never ask you to do that. Delete!

A message that says there is a problem with your account, or with a transaction or a claim or something similar. Delete!

A message that pretends to be for you in particular, but does not include your full name. e.g. If the Post Office or FedEx really had a package for you, they would either deliver it to you or ask you by full name and address to contact them. They would not say, Dear Customer… Delete!

Offers that seem too good to be true (e.g. Katerina, a twenty four year old Russian lingerie model, wants to marry you). Delete!

Bogus business opportunities or get rich working from home schemes. Delete!

Guaranteed loans, instant credit, free products. Delete!

Diet or health schemes. Look years younger! Delete!

Ebay or auction insider secrets revealed to help you get rich in 30 days. Delete!

Of course the best protection is to always have a backup of your data.

How to recognize a fake link in an email or on a webpage.

Remember that links in emails don't necessarily point to where you think they do. However, you can always see where they are pointing by hovering your mouse over the link and reading the address that shows up at the bottom left hand corner of the page. Try it with this fake link:

Here is a scam email purporting to be from PayPal. Thanks to my client Josh Oliver for alerting me to this variation on a perennial favourite.

If it were a genuine link to the bank, the URL would be:
https://www.commbank.etc...
It would not be a link to www.johncrawford.com...

Most banks will not put an account login link in an email anyway. The want you to access your account by typing the address or using a bookmark or favorite in your browser.

If you see anything like these in your email inbox, delete!

Here are some other recent fake emails I have received

Call or email John if you have any concerns about your computer security

One more thing. Fake tech support phone calls from Microsoft

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There is no way in the world anybody from Microsoft will ever ring you up and tell you that there is something wrong with your computer. They just do NOT do it, ever! The Indian company PCCare247 that started this racket in 2009 used Australia as a testing ground before expanding into Canada and the USA. Should you get a call, just hang up.

The same outfit is also running a bogus Telstra scam, where they call people and claim to be from Telstra, then induce the victim to give credit card details, resulting in fraudulent $95 or $195 charges being made. If you get such a call, hang up immediately.

How to recognize and avoid the dreaded CryptoLocker virus

(Also known as the Australian Federal Police scam)

We have all heard the warnings about not opening attachments or clicking on links in suspicious emails, but I’m going to say it again, because people are still getting caught. 

CryptoLocker is an extremely nasty piece of malware that encrypts the files on your computer and then demands a ransom of $500 to $1500 to unlock the files. The payment has to be made using Bitcoin, which is a problem in itself for most people. As if that isn’t bad enough, several victims who have paid up the ransom have then been left high and dry with their files still locked and unusable.

Although many email scams are pretty slick and you could almost forgive yourself for being conned, the Australian Federal Police scam is not in that category by a long shot! It is unbelievably bad in almost every respect. However, plenty of people, perhaps rushing or distracted, have been caught out and have really regretted it.

Here are some things to help you decide that a message is suspicious:

Government agencies always send important documents by snail mail, not email. Any exception should raise a red flag.

All Government or corporate documents use good spelling and grammar, and virtually all scammers use bad spelling and shocking grammar. This is because English is rarely their native tongue.

Here is a picture of a recent version of the fake AFP email

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