MailFrontier offers a short test that allows you to determine how easily you would fall for a phishing scam. I only got a score of 70%, so evidently I'm not as fraudproof as I thought.
Well, I got 100%. Of course, the sad thing is I've received quite a few of these. I'd rather have that 100% by brainpower, rather than experience.
That said, a couple of these had me thinking for a while. Without the ability to see the link addresses (scrollover in Galeon revealed nothing) or see the complete headers, I just went with my gut.
Posted by Matt Thompson on Mon Aug 02, 2004 at 05:11 PM
I got 9/10...but just 'cause I've never used PayPal.
Posted by Gee... on Mon Aug 02, 2004 at 06:07 PM
70% here. Dang. And I thought I was such a hot shot.
Posted by The Mexx on Mon Aug 02, 2004 at 09:23 PM
If you mark everything as fraud you also get 70%, so it's not only a measure of fraudproofness, which should be 100% in that case. 😉
Posted by Robbert on Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 04:01 AM
Wow. I got 100%. Cool.
Posted by Ga on Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 08:36 AM
80% here. That Earthlink one threw me. Pretty good phish.
I work for US Bank, so have seen that email. Several customers have brought copies in to ask if it's fraud. The best rule of thumb is to know that no company that you are associated with will ever ask you to "verify your customer information" with an email. At least not anymore. If you have a concern that your information is truly out of date, don't follow the links, just go to the site manually and log in just like you normally would.
Posted by Mark on Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 11:21 AM
You know, it appears to be really easy to tell, even without reading them too carefully. If they tell you to do something after logging into their web site, it's probably legit. If they ask you to click something, especially anything other than the homepage, it's probably not.
With this in mind, I got 100%.
Posted by Dave O on Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 04:39 PM
9/10 - I thought the MSN one was a fraud...
Hah! Rather fun, especially since I've never used paypal, ebay or any american bank or ISP.
Perhaps I should be more trusting?
Posted by Aspsusa on Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 04:42 PM
100% here.. some are really good.. I always look for Https: as no legit business would ask for info without it and run the cursor over the link to make sure the link looks legit and matches as well.
Posted by David on Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 11:56 PM
Whoa. I scored 100%. Cool. :coolsmile:
Posted by Shah on Wed Aug 04, 2004 at 11:16 PM
I was had by "3. ebay link"... That was a good one. But if I knew so many accounts were hijacked I would've been more suspicious...
I also didn't trust "paypal" verification since they asked to update credit card number. even though it was https://www.paypal.com ... harr harr..
Posted by parazyte on Thu Aug 05, 2004 at 08:59 AM
This test is worthless because you can only judge by the visual aspect of the message. We can't see the email header which play a big part in determining whether it's legitimate or not.
Same with SSL certificates while purchasing online. Most people see the lock icon appearing in the corner of the screen and just assume it's safe. But who really take the time to verify the validity of the SSL certificate? You know, giving your money securely to a crook doesn't make you less ripped off.
Posted by bs on Tue May 31, 2005 at 07:49 AM
Well, I only scored 70% too, but I bagged all the scams. What I got wrong was I thought 3 of the legitamate e-mails were fakes. Then again, I do not do business with those companies so I would not really know what their e-mails look like.
Posted by Lounge Lizard on Thu Jul 20, 2006 at 05:05 PM
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Comments
That said, a couple of these had me thinking for a while. Without the ability to see the link addresses (scrollover in Galeon revealed nothing) or see the complete headers, I just went with my gut.
I work for US Bank, so have seen that email. Several customers have brought copies in to ask if it's fraud. The best rule of thumb is to know that no company that you are associated with will ever ask you to "verify your customer information" with an email. At least not anymore. If you have a concern that your information is truly out of date, don't follow the links, just go to the site manually and log in just like you normally would.
With this in mind, I got 100%.
Hah! Rather fun, especially since I've never used paypal, ebay or any american bank or ISP.
Perhaps I should be more trusting?
I also didn't trust "paypal" verification since they asked to update credit card number. even though it was https://www.paypal.com ... harr harr..
Same with SSL certificates while purchasing online. Most people see the lock icon appearing in the corner of the screen and just assume it's safe. But who really take the time to verify the validity of the SSL certificate? You know, giving your money securely to a crook doesn't make you less ripped off.