Recognising Spam e-mails

Misky | 13:40 Mon 01st Oct 2012 | Technology

10 Answers

Is the trick to recognising spam e-mails as simple as letting the mouse hover over the link you're given, and if the address that comes up in the little box is different to that in the link, it's spam? I think I remember being told this but thought I would check before I delete another e-mail here.

Memory Failure

dng

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boxtops

I've heard that too - but it does no harm to open the email to check, just be 100% sure not to click on any links in a doubtful email. We've had several this morning - some are easy to spot if they are from banks you don't have an account with.

Misky

Question Author

I know the ones from banks and HMRC will be spam but lately there are others coming in that I don't recognise. Some of them are obviously foreign which is fair enough, but others are a little more clever, and this is the only way I remember of knowing that they're rubbish. Sometimes I google the heading and find that lots of others have had the same e-mail and usually someone will confirm they're spam. I'm off to delete one asking about my pension details (which is one of the clever ones, I think!) ..... Thanks Boxtops

boxtops

ther's one going round telling you you are due a tax refund - that's spam, too.

VHG

It is one way of checking, but it can be a whole range of things that make you suspicious.

Suppose you got a genuine email from say Tesco the "text" may say "Tesco email" or similar but if you "hover" the address it goes to may be a genuine Tesco email address, so it that case they are different, but it is OK.

The problems comes, for example, if the "text" says "Barclays Bank" but the "hover" words say "www.splayxyz.ru/login" then you might be worried.

It does pay to look at the country of the web site. So above you see it says "splayxyz.RU". Well RU is Russia and Barclays are not going to send a email from Russia (or Turkey or China and so on).

So check if it is "UK" or "COM" at the end and if it is any other country beware (though you cant be certain the UK or COM are genuine either).

ALWAYS be careful if anyone asks you to verify your account by logging on to a web site to "very" your account. This is almost certainly spam (called phishing") and all they want to do is steal your userid and password.

Even if they say you are going to lose your account if you dont verify it, dont believe them.

Also beware if it is from somone who does not have your email address, say the Income Tax people, where you get "dodgy" emails saying you are due a tax rebate when you have never given them you email address.

So it is no one thing, but a collection of things that can lead to you thinking it is spam or junk or phishing email.

If in doubt DONT reply to any email.

VHG

I have a Googemail (gmail) account and they are excellent at filtering out spam and junk.

Because they have so many users they can easily spot a spam email as it will probably be sent to hundreds or thousands of their users.

So as soo nas they spot it is spam they put it in your spam or junk folder.

I check the folder now and again and they are usually very very accurate.

Ellipsis

Yes, hover over the link and see where it goes.

To follow up on VHG's example, the link may be to something like

www.barclays.co.uk.splayxyz.ru/login

That is still a bad one. You have to look at the whole "domain" (the first part of the URL, the bit between "http:/" [or "https://"] and the next slash). In the case above, the domain is splyxyz.ru and, because they own the domain, they are able to add whatever they want before their own name. You need to be very careful to watch for this.

A link to

www.barclays.co.uk/some-random-text-that-look
s-dodgy/login

is actually a good one. That said, it's best not to click links in emails if you're unsure. Instead, go direct to the site yourself, then log in.

Misky

Question Author

Thanks you lot - plenty of things to look out for then!

anaxcrosswords

A very simple thing to remember - if the email doesn't address you BY NAME then it is 99.99% certain to be spam.

vivandorron

ana is spot-on. If I get any E/mails which are Not addressed to me personally, I just bin them; and never click the links or open any attachments, for fear of nasties getting into my computer.

Ron.