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Tips - Email
Pfishing - How to Track the Source and check legitimacy
Pfishing (sometimes spelled Phishing) is a method
of identity theft where con men use fake e-mail that looks like it comes from
legitimate sources.
A Pfishing email is sent by cons trying to seduce you into
revealing your
personal and
financial information. Once they receive your information they use it to either
clone your identity or to empty out your bank accounts and run up your charge
cards. Here are some tips on how to avoid becoming the next victim.
This article will show you how to quickly check the link
provided in an email and also how to track the source to find out where it's
coming from. Click the images to see a larger view.
| Check the Link in an Email
Place your cursor over the link in the email. When
you do, you will see a tool tip that displays the full path of the link.
(How to turn off Automatic Image Resizing)
Notice the website address that is listed has nothing to do with EBay.
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Find Out
The Origin of the Link Address
This is a bit more complicated, but if you
have that bull-dog personality you're the kind that will dig till you
find it, otherwise when you forward the Pfishing email to the company
being spoofed they will.
In the example
image for Check the Link in an Email above, the website address is what
is called an IP number: 218.71.239.118 Go to Step 1 below to
trace this IP address and find out where the email actually came from.
About
IP Addresses: All websites and email addresses have a
unique IP number (nameserver) assigned by the hosting company that
allows the domain name (their dot com name) to be found. Most
of the time when you look for a website you do it by the domain
name. If you're curious you can find out what you computer's
IP address by visiting
http://www.whatsmyip.org
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- You want to visit a domain name provider that has
a WHOIS link that give you the option of putting dot-com or
nameserver (IP) addresses. Generally I use two or three to
search out information. I usually start with
www.NETSOL.com.
You may have to search for the WHOIS link (use CTRL+F and type whois
in the find box).
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- Type the IP address or domain name in the search
box and check the appropriate type of search, then click the search
button.
On some sites you may be asked to enter a series of numbers and
letters as proof that you are a person searching and not a
computerized webbot crawling for IP addresses.
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- Check the results. In this case all I found
was that the IP is registered to some company in Milton Australia.
That doesn't necessarily mean this is where the email came from and
the information is inconclusive. Sometimes that is the best
you can do, sometimes it is not. Look closely for the
nameservers listed.
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- There is a reference to Apnic.net as the
nameserver. That is where the person's email and website
account are probably registered. Since there is not clickable
link in the results you will have to copy and paste the information
into your browser's Address Bar.
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| Check the results and BINGO got um.
Now I know the email was sent from CHINA. I also know that there
is little I can do by reporting this IP address. About all you can
do is block the sender's company or IP in your spam filter. |
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Disable the automatic image resizing in your Internet Explorer
browser.
-
 Open
your browser.
- Click on TOOLS in the menu bar.
- Select the ADVANCED tab.
- Scroll down until you find the Multimedia section and
uncheck Enable Automatic Image Resizing option.
Deanna Lilly - Bizness Concepts
410-536-4610
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