Phishing scams come in all shapes and sizes and are based on a wide variety of seemingly legit business. Many of the more successful ones generally come in declaring there is an issue with your account and they need you to click on a link and enter some pertinent information in order to alleviate the problem.

Except that the link is not what it appears to be. And by entering any personal information, you actually will have created the problem.

We recently received such a Phishing attempt, disguised as an e-mail from Go Daddy as it related to our account. It didn’t seem right, and a Google search confirmed the e-mail sender’s nefarious intentions ( www.thechipmerchant.com/it-blog/security-alerts/godaddy-phishing-emails/). The message was worded cleverly enough-coming in as “Status Alert: Code xxxx”. Except that, if you’ve been using Go Daddy for any length of time, you’d know you’ve probably never seen a legit e-mail from the service provider formatted in such a fashion. I’ve personally used them for hosting for nearly 9 years, and outside of the phishing I’ve never once received a similar message.

Also, if you had not decided to first search Google to confirm your concerns, a quick hover of your mouse over the hyperlink-which looks like a legit Go Daddy URL-actually shows the real destination: a website ending in .RU.

If and when you think something isn’t an honest to goodness, well-intended e-mail, you will be doing yourself a solid by researching it a little bit first. If you aren’t so certain, reach out to a trusted IT professional and enlist their assistance, or if nothing else, contact the vendor in question-assuming you have a normal business relationship with them. Their customer service department would be able to confirm the legitimacy of any account messages you would receive. Either option may take a few more minutes of your time, but that’s nothing compared to the time you’d spend undoing the damage after you clicked on the malicious URL.

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