Friends,
Last night, I received an email from a dear friend asking me to investigate a website that sells consumer electronics and related goods at mind-boggling prices. I am not going to get into much detail, but would like to note that the website in question was in fact using top level .com domain, and looked like a legitimate business to an average person.
I am confident that in this day and age, many IT professional receiving these types of questions rather frequently considering that over the past several years, online security has become a priority to most businesses and consumers. According to credible sources, in 2008 nearly 81.5% of all email traffic around the World comprised of unsolicited emails. Many of those emails contain links to either legitimate or fraudulent website. The question is how do you keep safe ensuring that both your business and you personally protected against fraud?
Well, the simplest solution for businesses is to implement a two-tier defense mechanism comprised of mail-gateway solution that includes both anti-spam and antivirus, as well as web-content filtering solution that will protect the user in the event that the anti-spam filter failed to recognize and block unsolicited, potentially harmful email message. For an enterprise, both security solutions are a must.
Now, what do you do when you receive a link to a fraudulent website from a co-worker, or any other credible source because they came across it surfing the Web? Speaking from experience, you will click the link and will review the website in questions. In order to protect yourself against online fraud in cases like that, follow these simple steps to determine if the online merchant that offers goods and services is in fact a legitimate business.
Search Engines
One of the simplest things is to search the web using company’s name or just a domain name. For example, for ACME Corporation, you could search for “acme.com review”. If you do not get relevant results except the main domain, the website is most likely fraudulent. I know that it is a strong comment to make; however, considering wide adoption of social media technologies that feeds on user generated content, it is almost impossible that somebody somewhere did not write anything about an online merchant.
Contact Information
Vast majority of legitimate business today advertize their contact information that may include phone/fax number, toll-free number and contact email. When you are on the website, look for Contact Us page.
Majority of fraudulent website will use free email services such as Live.com, Gmail or Yahoo! simply because those email accounts are virtually untraceable and could not be associated with a particular company or person. For example, they could advertize sales contact email as acme_sales@live.com, which looks legitimate to an average Joe. However, any legitimate business will use their own domain name for corporate email promoting corporate identity, i.e. ACME Corporation would use internet domain acme.com, and most likely, their sales contact email will be sales@acme.com.
Domain Age
If an online merchant claims to be in business for over 10-years, it should be reflected when checking internet domain age. There are many online tools to help you quickly determine that. Personally, I like using URLTrends.com. It will determine domain age, and will provide you with crucial information related to domain rank as well as back links from other websites. I think we all agree that a legitimate online business must have relevant quality links from other websites.
To conclude, by following these simple steps, you will ensure that you are dealing with a legitimate business.
Stay safe!
The Driz Group
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Filed under: Information Security | Tagged: fraud discovery, internet scam, internet security, online fraud, online scam, SPAM
