I almost got snagged today by some pretty clever malware appealing to my sense of duty. See the email I received today. The email looks right. There were no spelling errors. But there were several clues I will describe that you can watch out for.

CLUE #1: No one refers to me as DEBORAH ANN, so that is clue number one, albeit not necessarily a red flag.

 

CLUE #2: Now look at the link. It starts with http://… Most reputable sites, especially domain companies will be using httpS://… The S is for secure and many of us in the know have changed ours two years ago. And again, we see the signature area missing the S on http://.

CLUE #3: Look inside the link. A real url will be simpler. For instance it would read something like …bluehost.com/account/reactivation.html. Instead, we see “bluehost.com/cyberlegosite.com/account/reactivation .html. This is a fake site. Now here is your red flag!

CLUE #4: So if you have been unlucky enough to actually experience malware on your Bluehost site you might have taken the bait and clicked the link. Like me, you’d hopefully get the warning below. If you missed the first few clues, do pay attention to any warning…and call your web site manager to check it out!

P.S. I had a chat with Bluehost and they confirmed it was malware and they have been getting a lot of reports on this today.