Security Center: Email Fraud

• What email fraud is
• Types of email fraud
  • Phishing Scams
  • Nigerian Scam
  • Sweepstakes & lottery Scams
  • Chain Mail Scams
• How to identify a fraud
• How to protect yourself from email fraud
• Reporting Fraud
• Where to go for more information

What email fraud is

Email fraud is one of the easiest and cheapest way to distribute fraudulent messages to potential victims. Millions of dollars are lost to email fraud each year. While most fraud is sent through email asking users to provide personal information like logon IDs, passwords, and account numbers, there are many ways in which scammers get their victims.

Types of email fraud

"Phishing" Scams
These are currently the most common and dangerous of email fraud. Often scammers send messages disguising themselves as large financial institutions like credit card companies or banks. They will typically ask you to click on a link in the message to confirm or verify that their information on file is correct. Typically, the message looks authentic and even bears logos and links that look like they are coming from legitimate financial institutions. For the most part, banks and credit card companies will not ask for personal information in an email and these message should be treated as fraud attempts and be deleted.

For more information on phishing, please visit our phishing page.

Nigerian Scam
This is the most common example of an Advance Fee Scam. The perpetrators of advance fee fraud scams(often referred to as Nigerian or foreign bank scams because of their origin) are very creative and innovative in telling a story or giving a reason as to why they need money and the many riches you could earn for helping them. Individuals are asked to provide fees, social security numbers, credit card numbers, or other personal identification to secure the larger sum of money that is to be given to you. Once this information is received, victims usually find that they have lost very large sums of money and have later become a victim of identity theft. Because most people are embarrassed by falling victim to such scams, it is hard to determine just how many victims are affected by this scam each year.

Sweepstakes & Lottery Scams
These scams are often very similiar to the Nigerian Scam in that this scam tricks you into believing that you have won large amounts of money. You are asked to provide some personal information to claim your prize, but then this information is used to steal your identity and money from you. Do not reply to these messages, simply delete them.

Chain Mail Scams
These scams often don't ask for you to provide any personal information at all. At most, some schemes will ask for your email address. Most of these scams are actually either virus hoaxes or prize scams. The email will usually warn of a horrible virus that is travelling through email and to delete a certain file from your computer or download a patch found in a link provided in the email. Usually, doing either one of these will actually cause more problems. By deleting unusual files from your computer, you can be certain that programs will stop working corectly or even make your operating system not work at all. For more information on this type of scam, please visit our email hoaxes page.

Another form of chain mail usually involves clicking on a link to receive a prize. After clicking on the link, you are asked to provide your email address and the email addresses of several of your friends and family. This pattern then continues down the line and in turn, you will receive a prize for spreading their name and information. What happens instead is that your email, as well as your friends and families, are added to spammer's mailing lists and your email inbox can be clogged with spam.

How to identify a fraud

It's often difficult to tell if an email is legitimate. Scammers have become increasingly sophisticated in creating legitimate-looking fraudulent emails and websites. These emails and websites often appear to be from the actual companies and include images and logos of credible organizations. If you think an email you received is a scam, one place to check is the Urban Legends Reference Pages list of examples. However, these scams can come in thousands of different forms and are often hard to pin down to a specific example. The list below contains some common characteristics of fraudulent emails and websites:

The message has a sense of urgency telling an individual that if they fail to reply to the email, something bad will happen to them. This is usually the case of a bank or credit card scam. The scam will ask that they verify or update their account. If they fail to comply, the message may state that their account will be suspended or terminated.

The message asks for account or personal information including:

• Bank account or credit card numbers
• Online login ID's and passwords (usually for banks or credit card companies)
• Social Security numbers
• Mother's Maiden name
• Your date of birth
• Any other personal identifying information
• The message will often contain links that appear to link to the legitimate company's website or email address but in fact, will link to a fraudulent site
• Fraudulent emails will often hide, disguise, or fake the real sender's email address and can even make it appear to have come from a legitimate company.
• The email will often contain spelling or common grammatical errors
• The message promises large amounts of money for only a small deposit to process and claim the large sum or a bank account for the money to be funneled into.

How to protect yourself from email fraud

While some suggestions may seem like common-sense ways to protect yourself, many suggestions are often overlooked. Below is a short list of some ways to help protect yourself from fraud while online:

• Never provide financial or personal information to unsolicited emails
• Never click on a link in a webpage that you may think is from a fraudulent email. Although the link and the page that it links to may look legitimate, it is safer to simply type the institution's website in the address bar and directly visit the website that way.
• Change your passwords and online IDs regularly (a few times a year is suggested).
• Keep your anti-virus and anti-spam filtering on all of your computers up to date. Some fraudulent emails have infected attachments that can often be picked up by your anti-virus software.
• Keep tabs on your bank accounts and credit activity. You can even contact the major credit agencies listed below and attain a copy of your recent credit reports. Checking your reports not only will help ensure that there are no errors or abnormal activity, but also ensures that all your personal information is accurate and up-to-date.

Reporting fraud

If you believe that you have fallen victim to online fraud, below is a webpage provided by Microsoft that has a great breakdown of steps that you can take to minimize problems with your identity, bank accounts, and your credit.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/privacy/fraudvictim.mspx

Where to go for more information

Advance fee frauds (Nigerian scams) are investigated by the United States Secret Service. For more information, visit the Advance Fee Fraud Advisory page. A list of some popular and recently reported hoaxes can also be found at Symantec's Website and also at McAfee'sWebsite. To learn more about Internet hoaxes and scams in general, check the Urban Legends Reference Pages.