Using a Computer Safely
Spotting a phishing message
Check a message against the five signs of a phishing attempt, working out for yourself whether the link in it belongs to whoever the message says it is from.
Phishing is a message that pretends to come from somebody you already trust — your school, a shop, a bank, a delivery company — so that you will hand over something to a stranger without noticing. The one thing that does not help is asking yourself whether the message looks convincing, because looking convincing is the entire job the message was written to do. What helps is checking it against a fixed list, the same list every time, in the same order, however ordinary the message looks.
The five signs
1. It asks for a secret — a password, a PIN, or a code that has just arrived on your phone. 2. It sets a deadline — something is closed, lost or charged unless you act inside a short time. 3. The link goes to somebody else's site — the site name in the link, which is the last two pieces of the domain name, is not the site name of whoever the message says it is from. 4. It does not use your name — it opens with Customer, User or Friend, or with nothing at all. 5. It is about something you never did — an order you did not place, a prize you did not enter for. And one rule above the count: the first sign settles the matter on its own. A real school, shop or bank never asks you for a password or for a code from your phone, so a message that does is a phishing message however clean the other four come out.
Worked example
You do have an electricity account and a bill is due this week. A message reads “Dear Customer, your electricity will be cut off tomorrow unless the bill is paid at https://citypower.com.billing-now.net/pay.” The electricity company's own site name is citypower.com. How many signs?
Sign 1, asking for a secret: no. The message asks for a payment, and a payment is not a secret.
Wanting money is not by itself a sign. A real bill wants money too.
Try it together
A message about a football club sends you to https://tickets.greenfield-fc.com.seat-check.net/buy, and the club's own site name is greenfield-fc.com. Does the link belong to the club?
Three steps, and the whole of the work is in the first two.
1.The domain name runs from after the two slashes up to the first single slash. Write the whole domain name.
Have a go
Have a go on your own. A message opens “Hello User”, is about a refund you never asked for, and gives you until the end of the day. It has no link in it at all and asks for nothing secret. How many of the five signs does it show?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.