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Don't get hacked ~ Common sense and how to use it

Yay, I won the lottery!

Other scams tell us we have actually won the lottery in another country.

Obviously, if we haven't bought a lottery ticket, we can't have won it, right? Strangely, some people still think they have won without entering, but I can't really help those guys. Fake lottery emails come in all forms. They're usually talking about a different country's lottery than our own, so if we live in Europe, Africa, Asia, etc, are not a US citizen and don't even use dollars, then NO, we haven't won a US lottery. Equally, US citizensshouldn't expect Euro lottery wins without entry. SHRED THAT EMAIL, MY FRIEND.

Of course, we may live in the country the scammer has mentioned and have bought a ticket - this is rare, but could happen. However, most lottery companies inform their winners by registered post, especially in the light of so many lottery email scams. If you're unsure, just copy the first line of the email and check it in a safe search engine like SEARX.

If you have REALLY won the lottery, mine's a pint. :)

Other 'winner' scams are similar, like the Microsoft Award Draw one:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MICROSOFT AWARD TEAM

PO Box 1010 Liverpool, L70 1 NL.

(Customer Services) Ref: UK/9420X/2016 Batch: 074/05/ZY369

Dear Winner;

This 10th day of November the entire staff of Microsoft Corporation (Promotion Department) wish to inform you that you have just been selected as a lucky winner from the Microsoft email draws that is usually held twice in every year.

Microsoft Corporation organize this promotion offer in other to compensate consumers of the product in the world at large for their infinite supports towards the growth of the company.

Hence you have won $850,000 USD (Eight Hundred and Fifty Thousand United States Dollars) and you are expected to fill and send back the following for claims:

1.Full Name.............

2.Address...............

3.Sex...................

4.Marital Status........

5.Age...................

6.Country...............

7.Occupation............

8.Telephone Numbers.....

Kindly complete the prize claims form above and send to your claims agent Mr. Gregor Raymond via email: (contact xxx@gmail.com).

Congratulations!! Once again.

Yours in service,

The Award Team

(Microsoft Corporation)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This one looks more believable. It has an address in Liverpool but it is a Post Office box, not a real address. They'll use the details they glean from these emails to carry out more social engineering of the sucker for more scams and/or to sell on to hackers, corporations and advertisers. And does Bill Gates give $850,000 to random Windows users twice a year? Um, no.

LINK 1 Microsoft user forum (the real one) on this scam (8 trackers)

A list of similar scams also pretend to come from Yahoo and MSN using the same Liverpool PO box.

Our common sense is useful. If we don't have a rich African cousin or haven't joined a dating agency and receive an email saying we have, we're being scammed. This also applies to corporate scam emails - if we get an email saying our paypal account has a problem and we don't have one, it's a scam; if we get Amazon asking for our password and we don't even have an account... well, you get the picture.

Another fake email says it comes from our cousin or someone we know. The Microsoft Award scam will give them the details they need to research us (social engineering). Facebook friends and relatives are profiled and the sting begins. Some are very elaborate. Then they'll pretend to be our friend or relative and send emails saying they're stuck in an African country and need to get the airfare out, or are in hospital somewhere and can't pay the fees.

This is how low humans will stoop for money and relies on how much human goodness the victim has. If the scammer has done his homework (social engineering), he'll know how we'll behave and what buttons to push. If one of these emails lands in your inbox, search its first line safely and ask the Facebook friend or relative if it's true, but DON'T REPLY TO THE EMAIL.

Next time we'll discover some email tools.

I cover more common sense security tips in Potentially Unwanted Problem #1: YOU

LINK 2 Other tips Potentially Unwanted Problem #1: YOU (7 trackers)