Is it a Scam – Or Not?

Galleries

  • Verify You Are a Human

    Many (most?) of you have seen those annoying captchas that are designed to see if you are a human. They often don’t really stop hackers but the always annoy users.

    And, recently, you have likely seen different ones on different websites, so you don’t really know if you see a different one whether it is real or a scam.

    This one is a scam.

    The window above is what you see. What it is asking you to do is to run a program that the malicious website has downloaded in the background.

    THE PROGRAM COULD DO ANYTHING. ANYTHING AT AL.

    If you get this request when you go to a website it is, pretty much, a 100 percent guarantee that the site is malicious.

    That doesn’t mean that the site started out that way. It could be that the owner didn’t secure the site and as a result, it has been hacked.

    Either way, LEAVE THE SITE IMMEDIATELY. CLOSE THE BROWSER. DO NOT GO BACK THERE.

  • Parking Ticket Scams

    Parking ticket scams have been around for a while but technology is allowing the scams to evolve.

    One scam is when someone places a parking ticket on your windshield. The ticket is not real. The fine is not real and even the barcode to pay it is not real.

    But people scan the barcode on the fake ticket and then give the attacker their credit card information.

    More recently, there has been an international wave of text message parking ticket scams. The scam starts with a fake text message like this.

    There is a link in the text message to pay the ticket and avoid a fine. This is not a link to the parking authority. But Google is a trusted domain so Apple allows the link in the text message in.

    If you tap on the link you are taken to the attacker’s web site and you get to give the attacker your information and/or get your phone infected.

    If see if it is real, from another browser window go to the city’s web site and see if there is really a ticket.