ABSA scammers are at it again...

I just received this lovely email from ABSA THEMSELVES!! YES - THIS MAIL SAYS "ABSA" ON IT SO IT MUST BE FROM ABSA!!

Guys and gals, please don't get caught here - if you do in fact click on the link in the email, you will be taken to a fake ABSA site - what actually happens is that you are viewing the real ABSA site, but VIA another dodgy site.
Which basically exposes your authentication details when you login, and voila! You are broke.

Here is a screen grab of the dodgy email:

So to prevent getting caught out, here are a few guidelines to follow if you receive an email like this, and are unsure of what to do:

- first check the senders address. In this case it is card@onlineservice.co.za, which already sounds an alarm - no mention of ABSA anywhere;

- carefully check the wording of the email. As I mentioned previously in this post, the people who spend their miserable lives doing this kind of thing, usually have a poor grasp of the English language for some reason... While the english in this mail is not really bad, some small things in the wording can help us out - e.g. "We noticed some invalid login attempts..." sounds just a tad casual for a banking institution to use in an official email.
In addition, I would expect that any bank would rather contact customers telephonically, rather than send them an email about a security issue like this.

- if you actually end up clicking on any link in the email, take careful note of the website address that you are taken to (up in the address bar in your browser).
In this case, the link goes to:
http://www.savannahareajobs.com/include/dets/internet-banking-update/login.do/onlinelogin.php , which clearly has nothing to do with ABSA.
Rule of thumb - If it's ABSA, you would expect to go to something like http://www.absa.co.za/absacoza/ . If it's FNB, you would be looking for something like https://www.fnb.co.za/ and so forth for all the other banks.

When in doubt, keep a copy of the email for reference, and get hold of your branch or your account manager.
Better safe than sorry anyday.

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How to get infected while browsing the internet... a DIY guide!

Despite the presence of antivirus software, firewalls and anti-spam software, many people still fall for the sneaky tricks of virus-spreaders online all the time.

Avast - my antivirus software of choice (and it's free!)

AVG - another decent free antivirus program

One of the tricks I have come across of late happens when the webpage that loads, looks exactly like a Windows Explorer window, which (apparently) shows your hard drives, DVD Drives etc.

A fake "scan" then runs on top of this window and alleges that you are infected by millions of viruses and spyware.
The entire "scan" window is a giant hotspot, and at the end of the "scan" you are encouraged to click a link to fix the problem.
If the link is clicked, you then open yourself up to an actual threat, possibly a downloaded script, dodgy website or some other malicious means of infecting your PC.
Nicely done, you fiendish skanks...!

How to get your self into a fix... buying into this nonsense is a great way to get started!

So in order to get you to click on their dodgy links, they first play on the paranoia of being infected.
Once they have convinced the gullible user that they are in fact in some kind of grave danger, the paranoia then drives the user to click anything that promises to make it all better.

So what to do if you think this may have happened to you?
Well if you went ahead and clicked the link, you will no doubt know if you have been infected because you are probably being bombarded by a message along the lines of "Your system is being infecting by serious bad virus", or some other similarly dodgy message.

A key giveaway here is the unusual / incorrect usage / incorrect spelling of the English language - antivirus companies like to uphold a professional image and appearance, by using well constructed sentences, perfect spelling, and by following the general rules of a language.
Virus creators on the other hand, despite their allegedly massive levels of intelligence, cannot seem to grasp the very basics of how one puts a proper sentence together. Spelling too, it seems is beyond their primitive level of understanding.

If you are infected, get yourself a free copy of Avast or AVG fast...

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