Today's Computing Tip

Your daily tip from SmartComputing

Avoid Phishing Scams

The most important part of the URL as far as detecting a phishing site is concerned is the domain name, which is the text to the left of the top-level domain (such as "smartcomputing" in our example). All content at the Smart Computing Web site is accessible via the "smartcomputing.com" domain name, so any additional text between the domain name and the top-level domain name should raise a red flag. For example, a Web page located at "http://www.smartcomputing.scammer.com" is located at the domain name "scammer.com," and a page at "http://www.ebay .customerservice.com" is actually located at the domain name "customerservice.com," not at "ebay.com." Any text that appears to the left of the domain name is a subdomain associated with the main domain. In the examples we just provided, "smartcomputing" is a subdomain of "scammer.com," and "ebay" is a subdomain of "customerservice.com." Ignore subdomains and focus on the domain name when determining whether a link or URL is legitimate. Hyphens and symbols such as @ also are used to make a phish site's URL look more legitimate, so watch for those, too.