gHacks technology news » fake mail http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Identify Legit Emails from major companies http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/09/identify-legit-emails-from-major-companies/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/09/identify-legit-emails-from-major-companies/#comments Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:22:54 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/09/identify-legit-emails-from-major-companies/ Email spam is so common these days that it has become a part of our live to wade through the spam to identify the real emails that have been sent to our mail account. It can be a challenge for the average user sometimes while IT-professionals and experienced users identify legit and fake emails at a glance .

I bet you have asked yourself the question numerous times if an email was legit or fake. I know that I did and I analyzed the email to find out if the sender was really the person or company that it claimed to be.

The software Trend Micro eMail ID which I spotted over at Raymonds blog aids the user under certain circumstances. The eMail Id tool is a browser add-on for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox that supports several webmailers like Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Hotmail.

email certificate

Email ID scans incoming mails from supported companies displaying a status icon afterwards which tells the user if the email is legit or fake. Moving the mouse over the icon reveals additional information about the email received.

Trend Micro eMail ID is an easy to use security tool that does not require configuration at all. It does have some limitations though. First, it only works with Firefox and Internet Explorer and only several webmailers plus Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 and second it supports only US companies at the moment.

If you are from Europe for instance you will not find this tool that useful because you normally do not receive that many emails from those companies from the United States.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/09/identify-legit-emails-from-major-companies/feed/ 1 Anatomy of a failed virus attack http://www.ghacks.net/2005/12/07/anatomy-of-a-failed-virus-attack/ http://www.ghacks.net/2005/12/07/anatomy-of-a-failed-virus-attack/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2005 08:16:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=2 Jim Kissel of Open Source Migrations Limited wrote a nice article about a malicious email attack he encountered recently. He analyzes the email he received and gives tips to secure Thunderbird, the free email program he uses.

The interesting part is the analysis of the mail. He dissects every part of the message and of course takes a look at the email header as well. The analysis ends with an advice (which he puts at the beginning of his essay) which should be common sense nowadays.

1. You need effective technology to protect you from the many unscrupulous people out there on the Internet who want to damage your systems, scam you or generally subvert your computing resources for their own ends.

2. Security via technology alone is not sufficient to combat the cyber criminals who are out to get you, your business, and your computers. You need to be aware of what is going on around you and take control of the situation before you are compromised. Just as Ignorance of the law is no excuse, ignorance of your computing environment can also land you in deep trouble.

My personal suggestion for you is to switch to a secure email program if you are still using Microsoft outlook. Mozilla Thunderbird, Opera Email and many others are not attacked that often and have better options to improve security.

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