Apropos of idiots at work
Feb. 27th, 2009 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trixtahHow not to get phished
If you ever get an email purporting to be from your bank, or credit card company, or tax office, or Great Aunt Bessie who wants to know your credit card number or bank account details for some arcane reason, for god's sake, do not, even if it has all the logos and your name or anything, click on any links.
Simple. Here endeth the lesson.
But what if you're worried that your bank/credit card issuer/tax office/great aunt is genuinely trying to contact you about an urgent matter? Ok, open your browser, and type in your bank website address. If you don't know your bank website address, then you obviously haven't used online banking, so don't bother. Once you're on your bank website address, look for the account logon link, which should take you to a page with https: at the start of the address and a cute little golden lock icon on the bottom right of the browser window, or perhaps in the address bar. Somewhere. Then you can logon and see if your bank has actually been trying to get hold of you.
If it's Great Aunt Bessie, for chrissakes, give the old dear a ring. The phone is still a mighty handy instrument for banks/credit card companies/all of the above as well. Don't click the links!
That goes pretty much for any email message that contains links where the content is not obvious or trusted - you can hover over the link to see where it is intending to take you. If you're still unsure, you can type in the address from the "http://" up to the next "/" to check if the top level site is anything recognisable. Even that could be slightly risky, though.
On a slight change of topic, well, it's no wonder the govt in NZ doesn't give a shit about women's wages. Incriminating pictures from a "Job Summit" held by the govt to discuss employment during the current recession tell the story. Yep, white middle-aged men. Apparently 15% of the participants were actually women. 20 Maori, 2 PI men and one Asian guy. 60% from business, a big swodge from government (central and local), and a whole 3 people from community organisations. Ok, most employers are going to be men (gah!), but you can't tell me that 85% of civil servants and pollies are male. So much for quaint notions of representation.
If you ever get an email purporting to be from your bank, or credit card company, or tax office, or Great Aunt Bessie who wants to know your credit card number or bank account details for some arcane reason, for god's sake, do not, even if it has all the logos and your name or anything, click on any links.
Simple. Here endeth the lesson.
But what if you're worried that your bank/credit card issuer/tax office/great aunt is genuinely trying to contact you about an urgent matter? Ok, open your browser, and type in your bank website address. If you don't know your bank website address, then you obviously haven't used online banking, so don't bother. Once you're on your bank website address, look for the account logon link, which should take you to a page with https: at the start of the address and a cute little golden lock icon on the bottom right of the browser window, or perhaps in the address bar. Somewhere. Then you can logon and see if your bank has actually been trying to get hold of you.
If it's Great Aunt Bessie, for chrissakes, give the old dear a ring. The phone is still a mighty handy instrument for banks/credit card companies/all of the above as well. Don't click the links!
That goes pretty much for any email message that contains links where the content is not obvious or trusted - you can hover over the link to see where it is intending to take you. If you're still unsure, you can type in the address from the "http://" up to the next "/" to check if the top level site is anything recognisable. Even that could be slightly risky, though.
On a slight change of topic, well, it's no wonder the govt in NZ doesn't give a shit about women's wages. Incriminating pictures from a "Job Summit" held by the govt to discuss employment during the current recession tell the story. Yep, white middle-aged men. Apparently 15% of the participants were actually women. 20 Maori, 2 PI men and one Asian guy. 60% from business, a big swodge from government (central and local), and a whole 3 people from community organisations. Ok, most employers are going to be men (gah!), but you can't tell me that 85% of civil servants and pollies are male. So much for quaint notions of representation.