|
|
|
11 Success Tips to Home Based Internet Business
Let's face it everyone wants to succeed with their home based internet business ? But what does it takes to really succeed in cyberspace ?
1. Your first ultimate start must include written goals and plans. Formulate a plan of weekly activity...
Surefire Ways to Attain Moneymaking Success
You have probably heard other people say that "Money isn't everything" or "Money can't buy happiness." They may be right in some aspects; but it's not just about the money.
It's about having an ideal lifestyle - being able to have control...
TEN STEPS TO MLM SUCCESS
First, here’s my tip of the day: There are proverbs etched on the bellies of those statues on Easter Island. And one of ‘em is: He who laughs at your stupid jokes is up to no good. (Remember that next time you go on a date.) Now for the story:...
The Seven Keys to Successful Offsite Meeting Management
A large offsite meeting is very much like a stack of dominoes. If one of those dominoes should happen to fall, the entire row simply collapses. Similarly, if you miss one critical detail, your offsite meeting can quickly unravel into complete...
To Be Successful Sell to Wants not Needs
To Be Successful Sell to Wants not Needs By Julie Chance My mother used to tell me, tongue in cheek, that I never wanted anything in my life– everything I asked for was something I needed!! Think about it. We say, “I need a new car.” “I need to...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
How Safe is Your Success? Part 5 of 8
"How Safe is Your Success" is a series of eight articles that address different aspects of a universal problem which is of particular importance to those who do business on-line. Most Internet users are at least aware there are dangers "out there", but few appreciate the real extent of those dangers, the possible (even likely) consequences, or the best, most practical and least expensive means of countering them. This series is intended to at least provide some useful awareness of the situation.
-------------------------
Part 5 - Phishy Tales
The word "phishing" has become something of a buzz word, yet many casual Internet users still do not know what phishing really is or how to identify it. In this part of our series I'm going to use a simple but actual email to demonstrate the most common form of phishing. But first, a bit of background.
Computer and technology dictionary Webopedia.com defines phishing as "The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft." On the origin of the word, Webopedia says "Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on 'fishing', the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting".
OK, but how do you distinguish between a phishing eMail and a real message from, say, your bank or credit card provider? A phishing message may look very legitimate, with all the right logos and so on. Even most of the links may be the real thing. Although there are often tell-tales such as poor spelling or bad grammar, many examples of this scam do appear to be perfect in every respect. The only way to see what is really going on is to look "under the covers".
What the scammer is trying to do is get you to click on a link that will take you to a website which is different to the one you think it is going to take you to. At this dummy page the scammer will try to get you to enter sensitive information such as credit card or on-line banking details.
With plain text emails, what you see is what you get. If a link says "www.CitiBank.com" then that is exactly where it will take you. But all is not so transparent with the links in a HTML email. With HTML the only way to tell where a link will really take you is to look at the HTML code that underlies the message. And "No", you cannot tell by hovering your mouse cursor over the link and looking at the status bar. The status bar message can be faked very easily.
All eMail client programs of which I am aware provide some means for you to look at the HTML code. In Outlook, for instance, you can right-click on the body of the message and select "View Source" from the pop-up menu. I've selected the scam eMail I'm going to use because it is a very simple example without too much HTML code to complicate the picture. The original eMail as it appeared in Microsoft Outlook can be seen here:
http://HackersNightmare.com/FreeContent/Other/phishing1.jpg
In a moment I'll show you the HTML code associated with that eMail. Don't worry if you don't understand HTML code at all – I'll explain the few important parts. But first, just a bit of general information to help you make sense of what you see.
In HTML code, anything that is between is called a "tag". A tag is the actual code that tells the web browser how to display the message text. In this simple example there are only a few tags in use, and only one of them is very important to us. The tags in use in the example email are:
 . See Lines 1 and 2.
<.BR> A line break. Several together is a series of line breaks. E.g. line 3. NOTE: The dot before BR is not part of a real HTML Tag. It is inserted so some editors will not interpret the text as a real Tag.
and The text that appears between them will be in bold type. See line 4.
address that follows the "href =" term is where you will be taken if you click this link. After the target web address, the tag must be "closed" with a right-angle bracket >. This tag must also be terminated with a tag. See lines 16-18. Anything that appears between the and the is simply a comment, regardless of the fact that it may look like a web address. This information is critical to the following analysis.
Here's the actual HTML code that makes up the eMail message. I have added the line numbers for ease of reference – they are not part of HTML.
1. 
2. "http://www.suntrust.com/images/Common/release3/logo_home.gif">
3. <.BR><.BR>
4. Dear SunTrust Client,<.BR><.BR>
5.
6. We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your
7. Suntrust account may have been accessed by an unauthorized
8. third party.Protecting the security of your account and of the
9. SunTrust network is our primary concern.<.BR>
10.
11. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily
12. limited access to sensitive Suntrust account features.<.BR>
13.
14. Click the link below in order to regain access to your account:<.BR><.BR>
15.
16.
17. https://internetbanking.suntrust.com
18.
19. <.BR><.BR>
20. We received a massive identity thefts targeting SunTrust so
21. we suggest you to Confirm Your Banking Account within 24
22. hours.<.BR>
23.
24. DO NOT FORGET TO COMPLETE BOTH FORMS, to
25. avoid Credit Card Fraud.<.BR>
26.
27. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and
28. apriciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of
29. the entire SunTrust system.<.BR><.BR>
30. Sincerely,<.BR><.BR>
31. The SunTrust Security Department Team.<.BR>
Incidentally, note the misspelling of "appreciate" on line 28. There are other errors also, such as a missing space in "party.Protecting" on line 8, and lines 20-21 are poor English. Real financial institutions rarely make such obvious errors.
Now, it is lines 16 to 18 that are critical to our investigation of this scam. Line 17 is apparently a link that suggests we will be taken to "internetbanking.suntrust.com". There is no reason to be suspicious of the address itself because it is after all on the SunTrust website. But…
Line 17 is not inside a tag, as denoted by an opening < and a closing >. The tag that indicates the real target of the link is on the previous line, line 16. The text "https://internetbanking.suntrust.com" on line 17 is just that – nothing but text. It could just as easily read "Find Nemo here" and it would have the same effect. The real target of the link is, as line 16 indicates, "http://www.toyworld.org/SunTrust" because it is in the "
The moral of this story: Do not trust APPARENT links in HTML email. Either check the underlying code as described above, or cut and paste the apparent link directly into your browsers address line. If you click on it, you could end up at a scammers webpage that looks legitimate, but will be anything but.
In short "Click here" could take you to anywhere – you probably appreciate that. But "www.CitiBank.com" could also take you to anywhere. Like "Click here", it is just text, despite the fact it looks like a web address.
If this newsletter has been passed on to you by a friend, please subscribe yourself so you can be sure of receiving the next part in this series, when we'll take a look at disaster recovery – specifically, recovering data that has been lost from your hard drive.
About the Author
Bill Hely is an Australian technologist, consultant and author whose professional focus has been on advising and supporting small business operators in IT and Office Productivity - and rescuing them when they didn't heed his advice the first time around. He is the author of several books on technology for the business person, including the Bible of Internet and PC security "The Hacker's Nightmare" - http://HackersNightmare.com
|
|
|
|
|
| Success.org - Action Principles - Free Empowerment Courses |
| Success.org - Home of the Action Principles and a Free Business Education on the web. |
| www.success.org |
|
| S.U.C.C.E.S.S. |
| Assists immigrants to Vancouver with settlement information, finding employment, parenting classes, information technology training, family and youth ... |
| www.success.bc.ca |
|
| S.U.C.C.E.S.S. - United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society |
| SUCCESS is a non-partisan citizen organization for the promotion of the well-being of Canadians and new immigrants and their participation in a just, ... |
| www.success.bc.ca |
|
| Success.com : The World Leader in Personal Development & Self-Help |
| Sign up for one of our online interactive Success University courses. We take our most popular audio programs and provide the full audio online along with ... |
| www.success.com |
|
| Success - In Business. In Life. |
| The only business magazine designed to inspire and guide motivated business people to lead truly successful lives. |
| www.successmagazine.com |
|
| Home - Dress for Success |
| Non-profit organization that provides interview suits, confidence boosts, and career development to low-income women in over 75 cities worldwide. Success ... |
| www.dressforsuccess.org |
|
| Interviewing Success |
| Information on all aspects of successful interviewing - preparation, performance, and follow-up for an entry level job interview. |
| www.collegegrad.com |
|
| Success in Mathematics |
| Success in Mathematics. Tips on how to study mathematics, how to approach problem-solving, how to study for and take tests, and when and how to get help. ... |
| euler.slu.edu |
|
| Sites to Promote Academic Success |
| Sites to Promote Academic Success ... You can also explore your learning style and explore some excellent general academic success sites. ... |
| www.uni.edu |
|
| Success Consciousness |
| SuccessConsciousness offers guidance, advice, articles and ebooks on self-improvement, spiritual growth, peace of mind, meditation, positive thinking, ... |
| www.successconsciousness.com |
|
| The Internet Marketing Center | Secrets to Their Success |
| As a member of "Secrets To Their Success", you'll receive an e-mail each month ... To keep "Secrets To Their Success" private site a manageable size, ... |
| www.secretstotheirsuccess.com |
|
| Made For Success |
| Motivational speaker. Includes information on products and seminars. |
| www.madeforsuccess.com |
|
| SuccessFactors Employee Performance Management Software |
| SuccessFactors performance management software is a flexible, affordable, on-demand system used by nearly 2 million people in companies large & small. |
| www.successfactors.com |
|
| 30 Days to Success |
| I was inspired to take this challenge by Steve Pavlina’s Entry “30 days to success”. I really like that method, and it has shown posit […] ... |
| www.stevepavlina.com |
|
| Success for All Foundation |
| We build adolescent literacy with middle school reading programs and middle grades reading interventions that engage young adolescents. |
| www.successforall.net |
|
| SUCCESS Mission Home Page |
| SUCCESS. SUbsonic aircraft: Contrail & Cloud Effects Special Study. Click here for a list of GRL publications · Mission Overview · End of Mission Statement ... |
| cloud1.arc.nasa.gov |
|
| When Job-Hunting: Dress for Success |
| One of the keys to a successful job interview: dressing for success. Here are some free expert tips and resources for both men and women. |
| www.quintcareers.com |
|
| SuccessLink |
| SuccessLink is an non-profit organization dedicated to improving classroom instruction and learning. |
| www.successlink.org |
|
| Mind Tools - Self-Study Management Training, Career Training ... |
| With Mind Tools' "Make Time for Success" self-study time management and personal effectiveness training, discover the 39 essential tools needed to maximize ... |
| www.mindtools.com |
|
| Success - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| HMAS Success (H-02), an S class destroyer launched in 1918 ... S.U.C.C.E.S.S., a non-profit organization aiding new East Asian immigrants in the Lower ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
|