We’re always telling people to avoid clicking on suspicious links, but the bad guys are making it harder to tell the difference between a legitimate URL and a suspicious one. We’re going to try to simplify it for you, and have you focus on the placement of a single punctuation mark in a link to tell if it might be safe or dangerous. Introducing The World’s Most Trusted, Fictional Online Retailer Let’s make up a fictional company that becomes a massive global retailer and multimedia company, as well as a household name. We’ll call our fake enterprise Flimflamazon. Our totally made-up Flimflamazon has a million billion products and services, and users log in to buy and sell products, manage their payments, run advertising campaigns, customize their own personal Flimflamazon user profiles, watch Flimflamazon movies that were shot exclusively by Flimflamazon Studios, manage their Flimflamazon Web Hosting accounts, and Flimflamazon is proud to announce that patients can now log in to their Flimflamazon to receive telehealthcare from our licensed Flimflamazon doctors and nurses. Our slogan is Flimflamazon; Everything is Here. Because Flimflamazon has become the world’s most trusted online retailer, and one of the largest marketplaces and distributors of content, people generally trust it. Just like our ads say, before Flimflamazon, buying products online and consuming media was challenging. As fun as this is, I think that’s enough world-building for this example. You get the idea. Flimflamazon is, much like companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google, huge, multi-faceted, and generally known and trusted by the public. Like Facebook, Google, PayPal, and Amazon, Flimflamazon’s massive success leads to Flimflamazon users being constantly scammed by cybercriminals to try to trick them out of their money and sensitive information. When Users Feel Safe, Cybercriminals Have an Edge So Flimflamazon users get a lot of email from Flimflamazon. They get emails about products they should buy, account notifications, and receipts. They get emails about their transactions and the products they are trying to sell. They get offers and alerts and everything in between. All a cybercriminal has to do is make an email look like a typical Flimflamazon email. They can steal the branding and do some technical spoofing to make the email look like it’s coming from one of the dozens of legitimate Flimflamazon email addresses. They can then include links that look like they go to Flimflamazon, but actually lead the user to a similar looking URL that the cybercriminals purchased and control.  It only costs a few dollars and a little time to create a web page that looks legitimate. A cybercriminal could purchase Flinflamazon.com (notice the subtle spelling difference?) or Flimflamazoncustomerservice.com or a whole slew of other simple tricks to look like they are a legitimate company. It’s up to all of us to be aware of what to look for so we don’t get scammed. The links that take you to scam pages exist to steal your information and money, and while the destination might look legitimate, once you go to the scam page of a phishing attack, it might already be too late to look for other potential warning signs. How to See the URL Destination of a Link In an Email, Chat, or Other Correspondence: While this is going to change a little from one application to … Continue reading Suspicious Links? It’s All In The Period