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Email spoofers - when being cautious pays off. Beware of a current LinkedIn spoof, your Notes Status Bar is your friend

Mat Newman  September 26 2010 06:41:04
In the last couple of days my inbox has been flooded with messages purporting to be 'LinkedIn Alert's'.

As a habit, I don't click on links provided in email messages until I look at my Notes status bar and see where the link will actually take me.

So my tip-of-the-day for your users is:



The Notes Status Bar is your friend! Look at it to see what Notes has been doing, and possibly what will happen next!



In this case my status bar told me that a link contained in an email message saying it had come from LinkedIn was going to take me to a site that didn't appear to have anything to do with LinkedIn.  The offending site was 'mimartar.com/1.html' and a quick check in FireFox reported that the page was a potential attack site - Get me outta here!

The offending email looked like this:


From:        LinkedIn Communication
To:        myemail@anaddress.com
Date:        25/09/2010 15:49
Subject:        LinkedIn Alert
Sent by:        messages-noreply@bounce.linkedin.com





LinkedIn
REMINDERS
Invitation reminders:

•  From August Head (Friend)


PENDING MESSAGES
• There are a total of 2 messages awaiting your response. Visit your InBox now.
Don't want to receive email notifications? Adjust your message settings.

LinkedIn values your privacy. At no time has LinkedIn made your email address available to any other LinkedIn user without your permission. © 2010, LinkedIn Corporation.








My status bar, while hovering over one of the links looked like this:

Image:Email spoofers - when being cautious pays off. Beware of a current LinkedIn spoof, your Notes Status Bar is your friend

A quick check of my linkedIn Side-Bar (you can get it here: http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=lotus) confirmed that I didn't have to 20 or so alerts that the email messages had informed me about.

The moral of the story is beware! Email links don't always take you where they say they will, but with a little bit of caution - and the fantastic tools and plug-ins available within Lotus Notes - you can keep yourself safe.  Remember: Your Notes Status Bar is your friend!

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Mat Newman

THE Notes (formerly IBM/Lotus Notes) Guy. Productivity Guru. Evangelist. IBM Champion for IBM Collaboration Solutions, 2011/2012/2013. Former IBMer. HCLite. Views are my own.

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Mat Newman




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