Week 6 Journal: Spotting Fake Websites

For this assignment I referenced https://www.identityguard.com/news/how-to-tell-if-a-website-is-fake to help me better understand and know what threats to look out for when it comes to spotting fake websites. Knowing how to identify fake websites is very important when trying to protect personal and organizational information. Some things that were mentioned in the article to look out for when using websites are misspelled Uniform Resource Locators (URL). A valid company isn’t likely to have spelling errors in their URL. Another thing to think about is possible infected links. You should make sure to copy and paste the link into google or run a search on the type of website before automatically clicking the link. I know from personal experience that UPS scams are very popular. There are text messages stating that there was an issue mailing a package and they need your information to continue with the shipping process. If there is an issue with something being shipped, UPS will contact you rather than a random number and will never ask for personal information over text message. Another type of scam that I’ve ran into is scams related to bank issues. Typically if there is an issue with your bank information your bank will contact you directly rather than emailing you with a link to a website. Knowing and understanding the signs of fake emails can minimize the risks of sensitive information being stolen.