OK, there are so many things wrong with this I just don’t know which one to address first!
The first tipoff should be the very name: NCUA. The National Credit Union Administration is NOT a credit union! It is a gov’t agency that oversees all credit unions! 1D10T5!
Second, lets review the bottom of the email…. hmmmm [...]

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Talk about “big game” phishing! The following article is from ComputerWorld (my morning coffee partner):

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Dearest Daniella Otokore:

I feel so privileged that you picked me over all the other people you could have selected for this wonderful opportunity.

I just have one question before I sign on the dotted line: Is the amount “2 Million Five hundred” or “$2,500,000.00″? I mean, that is kind of a big discrepancy and I want [...]

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While not directly related to phishing emails, my newest friend covers the other side of email skanks.
You know them, the pond scum that sends you emails telling you that you’ve been selected a winner in the lottery and you only need to send a few hundred in processing fees, or the ones that start with [...]

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Here’s an interesting twist on trying to bully you into giving them what they want.
The claim is that they discovered your credit card (BOA details) has been used on a site supporting our friend bin laden and because of this activity BOA is “limiting” your account.
The claimed website is a real website, however, it is [...]

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Now, this is fun! I knew that Amazon was big and that I could get anything from steel cut oats to bandsaws, but according to the “From” address: onlinebanking@amazon.com they sell money too!
There are so many things wrong with this email that I don’t know where to start. It was sent to no one (To:  [...]

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Dear Robert Mickelsen
You’re truly an idiot:
Whois
Domain Name………. mymutualban.com
Creation Date…….. 2007-10-03
Registration Date…. 2007-10-03
Expiry Date………. 2008-10-03
Organisation Name…. robert mickelsen

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Here is a real quick and easy one. The first tipoff for me was my lack of association with this bank. I don’t live in Massachusetts or have an account with any bank there, let alone Mutual Bank.
Looking at the URL behind the “click here or die” link shows only a very minor difference; the [...]

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To decode a URL you need to understand the following basic parts that make up the whole string. We’ll use one from a previous post.

URL:
Uniform Resource Locator. The URL defines the location of the site you are viewing.
Prefix:
The Prefix defines what Protocol is being called. A Protocol is a standardized means of communicating between computers [...]

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Dr. Cranor is a professor from Carnegie Melon University. Her team has developed a great game to help people learn how to spot Phishing attempts.
Anti-Phishing-Phil is a tiny little fish whose adventures teach him about the perils of scam emails and how to spot them.
While the game is cute, it is the initial series of [...]

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