Thursday, April 02, 2009

JustLocal virus alert: Webmail Upgrading, OptusNet Customer Service

I just received an email into my Gmail account which had the subject, Webmail Upgrading, and appeared to come from OptusNet Customer Service.

This email is a phishing attempt and should be discarded. Do not take action based on the email.

If you check the returned email address you will see the user "suport@optusnet.com.au" is spelt incorrectly. It also has incorrect word usage in the message.

The problem I found is with Gmail I could not see the underlying URL for the link. The email was not identified as spam by Gmail. In Outlook you can hover over the link and the underlying URL is shown. I retrieved the email using Outlook which displayed the link text as https://memberservices.optuszoo.com.au/login/?target=/myaccount/, but if you clicked on the link you would actually go to a domain www.uauctionoff.com.

If you are using web mail services such as Gmail please take care. Gmail is easy to use, but the lack of information on the actual address for the link could easily trick a person.

For those who are interested the email I received was sent from Nigeria.

Take care

- Kelvin Eldridge

PS. Recently I decided to withdraw OzEfilter due to insufficient people purchasing the software to justify ongoing development. However the response has been very loud that those using the software to protect them from unwanted emails, would like OzEfilter to continue. If you are thinking about getting OzEfilter let me know. If enough people are interested I will release a new edition.


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