Posted: Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 1:09 am. Permalink
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blanddiva11 I reblogged this post from
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  1. yayaa answered: i got a dm saying “you are on this site lol” i didnt click on it at all. i figured it was spam.
  2. moistrobot answered: What funsizebytes said.
  3. tj reblogged this from blanddiva11 and added:
    1) This is why you keep another browser around...you don’t use often. Even if you don’t...
  4. mathcat345 answered: I have no idea. I thought phishing was when someone tries to get your personal info from websites. I could be way off. Keep me posted!
  5. blanddiva11 posted this

How to spot Phishing

blanddiva11:

Somebody just sent me a tweet saying I was on some site that says I am a phishing site?  I have no idea what this means or what to do about it. I looked at phishing on Google, and I still don’t know what’s happening. http://3.ly/vPZ This is the link I was given and I’m afraid to click on anything there in case IT is fraudulent too.  Anybody know what I should do?  I am clueless about this sort of thing.?

1) This is why you keep another browser around that you don’t use often. Even if you don’t use Opera for anything else, I’d recommend keeping it around for situations like this.

Why use a browser you don’t usually use? Because it won’t have you logged in anywhere. Some sites have figured out how to manipulate people into posting to Twitter, etc if they were already logged in. If you aren’t already logged in, they can’t get you anywhere.

So download Opera and keep it around for sites you aren’t sure you want to visit. It’s highly unlikely that any virus/spyware/etc is ever going to target Opera, because it is not very popular.

(As a general rule, never use Internet Explorer if you can avoid it. Switch to Firefox. It’s a lot safer.)

2) If you aren’t sure where a link goes, feed it to http://longurl.org/expand

For example, if I put http://3.ly/vPZ into it it tells me that link will take me to http://videos.twitter.dsfasdc.com/ (DO NOT GO THERE)

Do you recognize dsfasdc.com? Nope. But if you visit the site, it tries to look like Twitter.

Why? It wants you to login as if it was Twitter.

Why?

a) probably just to be annoying and send out more DMs to your friends

b) BUT they will probably also check that username/password at other sites (ebay/paypal/etc). That’s why you never use the same password at more than one site.

3) Put the URL you don’t recognize into Twitter Search and see what others are saying about it. For example, if I put in http://3.ly/vPZ right now I see a bunch of messages including this one

rajonthemove: DANGER - this thing has your pic http://3.ly/vPZ - IGNORE SUCH Direct Messages. I was taken to a Twitter-lookalike forgery site!!

4) Always look at the “address bar” before you type in your password anywhere.

http://videos.twitter.dsfasdc.com is NOT the same as http://twitter.com

if one site LOOKS like another site, that is almost always a scam, someone trying to look like PayPal, Gmail, Twitter, etc.

5) BE SAFE, BE SLOW

Fewer mistakes are made by going too slow than going too fast. This is true of driving, dating, and life on the web. It is highly unlikely anyone is going to need your name and password for anything, anywhere, anytime. Treat each request as if someone were asking to borrow your car, or someone knocking on your door asking to use the phone.

6) When in doubt, ask someone you trust.

Like you did here. I’m sure there are lots of folks around who would be willing to help out if they can.