“Junk Mail” as it is called in the world of regular mail is the equivalent of “spam” in the email world. Spammers send out millions of emails in hopes of luring just a few of their victims into the scam. Don’t become a victim!

Junk email is a form or advertisement for many products, services and scams - legitimate or otherwise. Common topics of junk email are investment opportunities, hot stock picks, pharmaceutical offers, “your the lucky winner” type hook lines, “follow-ups” from meetings that never took place, legitimate-looking emails claiming to be from your bank (TD, CIBC, BMO, etc.), and many other sneaky creative sly ways to trick the reader into thinking the email is legit. Most of the times, you can sniff these scams out a mile away. As the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. Sadly by sending out the same email in such mass quantity, there are bound to be some people who innocently click on the email. Right there, you’ve been had. Your system could immediately become infected with malware. Whats worst, is that most of the time these spammers are seeking money. Never be tricked into giving money to anybody! If they are seeking information to do with banking accounts, ID numbers, or passwords, be VERY suspicious. Contact the institution to determine whether they would ever request information of this nature via email - most have a policy that they NEVER ask for any personal information over email.

Rules of Thumb:
-Be suspicious, and go with your gut instinct.
-Don’t click on links in emails unless you are certain of the links destination URL.
-If you don’t know who the sender is, delete immediately.
-Never give personal information via email unless you are 100% certain of the receiver’s identity.
-Never get duped into spending money on any scam, no matter how good it sounds. It’s too good to be true!
-Report spam as junk mail by flagging it as junk!

Obviously there is some level of discretion involved here but always think logically. Some of these email scams seem extremely legitimate - claiming to come from your bank, or even people in your address book. Always do your homework before following a suspicious email link. Check out Hoax-Slayer for more information into the latest email scams. Safe surfing!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.