Even though companies and individual users have firewalls, anti-virus, spam filters and other security software, there are still some malware threats that the vendors of these products are unable to protect against.  It is a continual cat and mouse game between the people who create the malicious software and those who protect against it.

In the past threats typically would simply slow down your computer, send out spam or attack other computers. Now there is cryptolocker malware that can encrypt all your files and hold them for ransom. Others may also trick you into typing your log-in details to trusted sites, provide your credit card data, or details on how to access company sites.

Often social engineering is used to fool people to installing malware or giving up sensitive data (known as phishing). There are some basic rules you can follow to detect if an email is suspicious or not. However, if you are still unsure have an expert check as they can at times be difficult even for a professional. If you do suspect you have fallen victim to an attack then log off and shut down your computer straight away and contact your IT support to minimise the impact.

Some basic practices you can follow to help mitigate risk are:

Here is a recent example that we have seen that encourages you to a link to download.  The link (Please view information) in the below email actually goes to auspost-delivery.com. They even have a site with similar looks to Australia Post’s real site. However, the site fake and registered to someone in Russia. You can check the owner of domains at http://www.whois.com/whois/ This is a free service and takes a few seconds to use, and may save you weeks of inconvenience.

We have also seen similar examples pretending to be that flight you may never have booked, UPS delivery, a Ticketek ticket, a facebook message, a LinkedIn contact and many others.

To determine if a link directing you to a different site than displayed you can hover your mouse over the link and it will display a pop-up tip showing where you would be directed if you clicked on it. In the example below, we created a link that claims to be http://www.good-site.com/ but will actually take you to http://www.malicious-site.com/.

Below is a good example of replicated or copied fakes site. The site appears to be live.com (Microsoft’s online Outlook) and the site address appears very familiar – except for one character. This site is lifve.com, not live.com, and would capture your details so that the owner could log into your email at any time and look for confidential information, credit card details or poorly implemented passwords and log-in details for other trusted sites.

Do you have tips or advice to spot malware and phishing attempts? Feel free to let us know through our contact page.