Evenlypiece

Last April 19 2008, I posted, out of mere strange amusement on spams, a short entry entitled ‘If spams were real…‘. In it, I mocked at how lame, how ridiculous and how desperate people can get just to hook a victim to a trap that’s way beyond anyone can imagine for selfish intent, namely to get hold of bank credentials and eventually steal the money, followed by many more bad things that could possibly be done by the malicious spammer…

While for me those “emails” that I actually receive on a daily basis appear to me as junks at first glance, I can’t deny that they may not be as lame and as ridiculous to others. I can tell when an email is bluffing simply by checking if there’s any mention of anything that’s associated with my personal transactions, connections or however you call it. I might not be able to tell when I feel that the spam content is highly associated with me in one way or another. And I believe that’s how unsuspecting victims can fall for the traps. What is funny to some, might actually sound serious to other users.

I remember receiving a “PayPal” email that wanted me to immediately update my profile or I won’t be able use my account any longer. At the time - oh boy of all the time - I was in the process of procrastinating updating a personal info in my PayPal account. So came the problem. That night I received the “email”, I couldn’t tell at first glance if it was real or not. The “email” looked believable and, at the moment, I felt associated to the content of that junk because it talked about something I was supposed to do. It’s been my habit to verify credibility of emails by copying and pasting content portions to Google about them. So when the time I entered a state of hesitation to believe, I tried to validate by Googling and you probably can tell what happened next. True enough, on the results page, rendered are the anti-spam/anti-hoax websites which already have condemned the same email I received into their spam archives.

What spurred this is the post on Google’s blog on How to Avoid Getting Hooked. Just thought of complementing on the previous one I published to share my 2 cents worth to promote awareness on the seriousness of spam not just as a nuisance but as a threat to privacy as well.

Just to add on to the must-do advices to avoid phishing sites, I would recommend users to Google on some phrases or names on the potential spams received. We have good guys over the internet who have set up sites that can help you clear any doubts and prevent you from getting hooked.