Watch out for phishing attacks.

Yes, you read that right. You have to be street smart and watch for phishing attempts. These are attempts to gain your website credentials at a fake site. They are more common than ever. Perhaps you’ve seen e-mail asking you to verify your Amazon, PayPal or Wells Fargo account by clicking a link. Your spidey sense triggered and you did not click the link. Good.

Last weekend, someone sent a phishing attempt to a client. According to Wikipedia, “phishing is the attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.” My client wisely spotted this phishing attempt and forwarded the e-mail to me.

The quiz.

You can visit https://www.opendns.com/phishing-quiz/ and take a quiz. This should take you less than 10 minutes. When you’re done, you can see your answers and explanations of which images were real vs. which images were phishing attempts. Do not be ashamed if you score less than 100% right. At least you tested your street smart web surfing in a test environment.

But wait!

Before you click that link, make sure it is real. It is possible that link is dishonest. Move your mouse pointer over the link and hover for a few seconds. Your computer will reveal the destination – where you would go if you actually clicked the link. This is how you can verify the link is honest, or if it is someone’s attempt to gain your username and password for a valid site.

I tested on a full screen monitor. You have to look closely at the images. You can share your results with friends or your online peeps. No matter your first score, you can retake the quiz and become more street smart, here on the Information Superhighway.