A few days ago, I posted an article called Understanding URLs or Web Addresses To Help Be Protected From Phishing Scams which taught you the basics of understanding “URLs” or web addresses, so you could recognize and avoid a common trick used by online scammers to fool people into thinking links in emails were legit.

I strongly recommend reading that article if you haven’t yet, as it contains valuable information to help protect your privacy and security online.

In that article I mentioned an email I’d received which looked like a legitimate email from Amazon.com on the surface, but which was clearly an example of a dangerous phishing scam if you knew what to look for.

Well, as it happens, I recorded a video where you can safely watch as I pick apart the actual scam email I received and listen as I point out all of the warning signs which helped me recognize and avoid this common type of online scam.

I just updated this video and decided to post it here and to my podcast to help you learn how to stay safe online. It clocks in at about 9 minutes long and explains everything in Plain English.

If you’re watching this on my website, you should see two players below for compatibility reasons. The first should give you a sharper picture & the option of full-screen on a computer, the second is for mobile devices such as the iPod Touch, iPhone & iPad, and for that reason is the version which goes out on the podcast.

Click the player below for the high quality computer version:

Tip: in the lower right corner of the video player above is a square button which will make the video full screen so you can see the details more easily. To the left of that button is a volume control you can use to make it louder if needed.

Tap the image below for the mobile version of this video:

If you found this video helpful, imagine how much more benefit you’ll get from hours of quick, easy video lessons like this, explaining computer basics and more in Plain English.

Use the links below to learn more about my quick & easy video lesson CDs.  You can also use the tip I shared in the video above to see the links are legit because they point to pages right here on WorthGodwin.com…

Click for: How to Use Email for Windows PC – Safe & Easy Email Course
or
Click for: How to Use Email for Apple Mac – Safe & Easy Email Course

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

An online scam that almost had me fooled – here’s a tip to protect you

A while back I wrote you about how a number of people had their Apple iTunes account broken into, and I mentioned how this most likely happened due to “phishing scams”.

Phishing scams, of course, are scams where a criminal tries to trick you into entering personal information ranging from username and passwords, to credit card numbers or other information that can be used for identity theft.

Knowledge is the most powerful tool you can use to stay safe. In this email I’ll teach you something about web site addresses which will help protect you against phishing scams and similar threats.  URLs (short for “Uniform Resource Locator” or basically, a website address) can be broken down into smaller parts which can help you understand how they work, which can help you stay safer online.

I recently opened an email which at first glance looked like it came from Amazon.com and was an order confirmation. It looked very official and for a half second, I was totally fooled, despite being very knowledgeable about these things.

[Update: I've added a new post to the blog where I show you the email and go over in plain English exactly how to was able to recognize the scam email - use the link to watch the video]

Now there were a number of things in the email which made me realize it was a scam, but the big tip-off  was that the links in the email didn’t actually point to Amazon.com, although I’m sure if I’d clicked them I would have been taken to a website designed to *look* like Amazon.

Understanding how website addresses work will help you avoid falling for that trick, and it can help make your life easier in general.
Let’s start with the term domain name. We’re not just going to talk about domain names themselves, but also “top level domain names” (TLDs) and “subdomains”.

Not everyone understands what a domain name is, exactly, and some people think they do, but actually misunderstand exactly what it is.  That’s OK — keep reading to make sense  of the computer term, and others related to it.

Phishing scams usually can only fool people if the person doesn’t understand how to read and break down the address of a website into it’s individual parts.  The scammers will make a website address that looks official if you don’t read it carefully or if you don’t understand how the addresses work.

If you can’t read the address properly and can’t tell a real address from a fake one, then you can get into real trouble.

Let’s take a look at the parts that make up a website address so you understand it better. We’ll use a real & legitimate website address as an example.

When you’re looking at a website address, it typically has a format something like the following (note – the example is not a link)

www.worthgodwin.com/computer-training-cds/

You’ll notice is has a few sections to the address, so let’s break it down into parts, using the above address as an example.

www — this is the “subdomain” and despite popular belief, it is optional, and also does not have to be “www”. “www” is by far the most common subdomain, but pretty much anything could be a subdomain, or you can even leave it off in most cases.
But the bottom line is you can set it to anything you want, including something potentially deceptive.

worthgodwin — in the above example, this is the actual domain name. Typically the domain name is the name of the business or organization that runs the site, or it is descriptive of what the site is about.

This has to be purchased, and has to be unique, so you can’t use someone else’s domain without their permission.

.COM — this is the “TLD” or top level domain name. .com is by far the most common, but there are many others. The TLD is supposed to give the visitor an idea what broad category the site should fit into.

.Com means commercial, (although many non-commercial sites use it) .org is some kind of organization like a non-profit organization, etc.

Each country has it’s own TLD, too, like .US for the United States, .UK for the United Kingdom, .IN for India, etc.

Many of the TLDs are pretty casual — i.e. you can use whatever you want, even if it’s not an exact match for your type of site.

But some of them are very carefully restricted, such as .GOV for US government, .MIL for military, .EDU for actual schools or universities, etc.

/computer-training-cds/ — the last part of the address above refers to a folder, just like a folder on your computer. This is normally used to indicate a specific section of the site, and in this case is the main page with information about my computer training CDs.

If you are setting up your own site, keeping it organized like this can help Google figure out what your site is about, and help you get the visitors you want.

So now that you have a better understanding of the individual parts of a web address, how does this relate to protecting against phishing scams?

Well, first off, anytime you see a link in an email, you can put your mouse pointer over it and see where the link will take you.  If the link doesn’t match the supposed sender, that’s a dead giveaway.

So if the email is supposed to be from Amazon.com, but the link actually points to someplace completely different, do not click on the link!

But some scammers get a little more clever with it and will make the link point to something like:

amazon.fakesite.com

See what they did there?

If you look at that with understanding of website addresses, you’ll see the fake address has Amazon in the address, but it’s the *subdomain* not the domain name!

That should clearly tell you that the site is NOT Amazon.com, but someone who doesn’t understand the difference could fall for that trick very easily.

And that’s the tip I wanted to share with you to help keep you safe.

One last thing — I mentioned you can put your mouse pointer over a link and leave it there for a moment to see where the link will take you.

On most email programs and web browsers, the link address will show up on the very bottom of the window in something called the “status bar”. If you don’t see the status bar at the bottom of your email window, look in the “View” menu and you should see an option to show or hide the status bar.  The exact location of this menu option varies from one program to the next, but it’s generally found in the View menu somewhere.

The one big exception to this is newer versions of the Mac OS X Mail program did away with the status bar and instead the address will show up in a “tool tip” which is like a little word bubble which appears after a second or two when you put your mouse pointer over the link.

Why not test this tip out with the links below.  The links take you to my website to a page where you can find out more about my easy video lesson CD course on Safe and Easy Email — included in the lessons is a lot more info on protecting yourself online (including video lessons showing you more like what I talked about in this article), plus simple basics of how to use email and more.

Here are the links to try out:

If you have a PC running any version of Windows:

Microsoft Windows How to Use Email Safely

If you have an Apple Mac computer running OS X:

Apple Mac How to Use Email Safely

When you put your pointer over either link you’ll see it points directly to my website and so is safe to click.

I hope that helps, and that you stay safe and have a great day.

Until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity For This Complex Modern World

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

I’ve been trying to get caught up so I could have a chance to write a new article for my blog, so with this recent story to illustrate a point, I thought I’d share this important advice to protect your privacy and security.

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the recent news about people who had their cards charged against their will by Apple’s iTunes Store, but it’s been all over the news, at least in the tech world.

A lot of people have been blaming Apple and saying the iTunes App Store was hacked, but it looks like a problem with passwords.

In this article I’ll help you understand what happened, and give you a few tips to avoid similar problems.

First off, if you’re not familiar with it, the App Store is part of Apple’s iTunes Store, and is an online market where you can get free or paid “Apps” for mobile devices such as the iPod Touch, iPhone, and the iPad.

Apps are basically programs (also called applications) just like you would find on your computer, but designed to run on a mobile device like a smartphone.

Apple’s App Store lets you browse through thousands of these apps which let you do a wide variety of things from keeping up with news, to reading a book, to working with photos, to playing games, and a lot more.

Again, the same basic idea as an application or program for a computer, just the “pocket sized” edition, so to speak.

The App Store can be found within the iTunes program on your computer, or by using the App Store icon on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Other companies also provide app stores for their devices.

So what happened with these unauthorized charges everyone is talking about?

Well, basically what happened is, people noticed that 40 out of 50 of the top-ranked apps (ranked in terms of copies sold) in the books category were all from the same person!

This seemed a little suspicious that one person would have managed to pull this off without being up to something. The next piece of the puzzle turned up when people started reporting unwanted charges on their accounts for hundreds or even in some cases over a thousand dollars, all orders for Apple Apps.

It seems that somehow criminals had gained access to at least a few hundred accounts people had on iTunes, they’d been used to place orders for dozens of apps, racking up big bills for each person who had been victimized.

Some people thought the App Store itself had been hacked, but most likely the each account had been broken into individually, probably by one of two means.

The first is known as a “brute force password crack”, and it’s where a program is used to try one password after another, starting with common ones, until the right one is guessed.

This may sound like a time-consuming process that no one would ever bother with, but remember it’s a program that does it automatically, and it starts with the easy to guess common passwords that so many people make the mistake of using.

The other possibility is that the passwords were stolen via a “phishing scam”, which is were people are tricked into entering their passwords into a website designed to look legit, but which is not.

Who is to blame?

At this point, the people behind it are unknown, but seem to be based in Asia. It is most likely an organized criminal organization instead of just one person acting alone.

Here’s what to do if you have an iTunes Store account:

If you’re concerned your account may have been compromised, you can find out by opening iTunes on your computer, then clicking the iTunes Store on the left side.

Then click your email address where it appears in the upper right of the window and you’ll be asked for your password. It’s OK to enter it there.

Once you log in, you’ll see a list of account-related items, including a “Purchase History” button you can click to look over any orders. You should be able to spot if there are items listed which you never ordered.

On the accounts screen you can also click the button “Edit Account Info” to change your password as a precaution.

If you find fraudulent charges, you can call Apple at: 1-800-275-2273 (to talk to a real person, press 0 at each prompt)

Here are a few tips for being safe with passwords:

1) Avoid using a simple word as your password, especially easy to guess things such as your name, your child or pet’s name, your phone number, the word ‘password’, etc.

Basically avoid anything you’d find in the dictionary to start with.

2) Don’t use the same password for everything – passwords are like keys, and I don’t think you’d hire a locksmith who used the same lock & key for every door and every customer. Don’t make the
same mistake with your passwords!

3) Longer and more complicated passwords are safer: as I mentioned above, brute force cracking methods will basically run through the dictionary when trying to break in — the longer the password is, and the more you mix in numbers with letters, UPPER and lower case letters (liKe THis), and even punctuation, the better.

4) Be careful about where you enter in your username and password information, and especially be wary of emails that come out of the blue asking you to “reset your account”, “update your information”, etc. And make sure that you look at the address bar on the top of your web browser window and read the address to make sure you’re on an official site when you sign in.

If you want to learn more, I talk more in depth about passwords and safety on a variety of my easy computer lesson CDs available on my website, including on the CD “5 Common & Costly Computer Mistakes and How to Avoid Making Them Yourself” which is part of the Windows Basics and the Apple Mac Basics bundles.

I also have CDs with audio and video lessons on how to recognize and avoid the phishing scams I mentioned earlier, which can help protect you against having your password or other important information stolen.

You can learn more and stay safer by taking a look at my easy, Plain English lesson CDs by visiting:

On that page you can either scroll down for written and video testimonials, or click the Apple Mac training or the Windows computer training links to see the list of lessons for your computer type.

Either way, I hope this lesson helps you stay safe and secure. If you have questions or comments about any of this, feel free to scroll down and use the comments box below.

Until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity For This Complex Modern World

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

I’ve recorded a new audio lesson to help warn you about a pretty common email scam which is going around these days. It’s not brand new, but not everybody knows about it so I wanted to post this new computer lesson to help you protect yourself.

I received an email which appeared to be from a newsletter subscriber named John, but I spotted it as a scam as I’ve seen this type of thing before.  It was clearly sent from an email address which had been broken into, and the criminal who did so used the address to try to fool me and everyone else they sent it to into thinking they were the actual owner of the email account.

I’ll post the audio lesson below and then quote the email below that so you can take a look to help you recognize and avoid similar scams in the future:

Here’s the email I received (full name and details removed for privacy) :

“Hello

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

This audio computer lesson departs from the usual computer question & answer format – I recorded this lesson to help you stop wasting time and clogging up inboxes with those virus warnings everyone likes to forward around.

In my experience, these virus warnings are usually either mostly or completely false, and don’t help protect anyone, because they’re hoaxes.  There’s a saying that a good lie is based at least partially on truth, and I guess that applies to virus hoaxes too.  Listen in as I separate the lies from the truth in one common email hoax, using it as an example to help you recognize the patterns of these fake emails so you can avoid being taken in by them.

You can read the full text of the email hoax below and read along as I pick it apart and explain why much of it doesn’t make sense, and show you some of the telltale signs it’s yet another hoax:

> **HUGE VIRUS COMING ! PLEASE READ & FORWARD !
>
>
> This has been checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up
> for this virus! and also checked Snopes, and it is for real. Get
> this E-mail message sent around to all your contacts ASAP.
>
> PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!
>
>
> You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message
> with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,’regardless of
> who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which
> ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C drive of your computer.
>
> This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address
> on his/her contact list. That is the reason why you need to send this
> e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25
> times than to receive the virus and open it!
>
> If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even if it is sent to you by
> a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately. This
> is the worst virus announced by CNN.
>
> It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus
> ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no
> repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the
> Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.
>
> COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND
> IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US**

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.