Dear eBay...

T

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
...I am forever trying to educate my non-technical friends and family NOT to click on links in emails that say things like "We need to protect your account".

So when you email me crud like this:

"...Hello Tony,

It's been more than a year since you last updated your personal info.

Keeping your personal information up to date can help better protect your account.

Sounds like a good idea? All you have to do is go to eBay and take a look at your personal info to confirm that it's still correct. If you
updated your personal info recently, please ignore this reminder.

Protect your account <--- A URL (which I obviously removed)!

Sincerely,
The eBay Accounts Team..."

And it turns out to be genuine, how do you NOT see that this just reinforces negative behaviour??

And yes - it is a genuine email from them.

Things like this really, really do annoy me.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
That’s just a basic no, what on earth would bring them to spam out such a dodgy email?

Poor, really poor.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I've seen loads of these. The genuine ones actually from them, I mean.

I hadn't thought about it before, as I'm happy telling the difference between scam and not scam, but now you mention it.. jeez. :/
 
T

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
Indeed but not everyone knows to check the URL before they go there, or to go to the one they have bookmarked/type it in from scratch.

And of course, althought I believe all major browsers have updated to prevent it, there was a trend to use Cyrillic characters that some browsers rendered as English letters. The ones I saw changed the A in Apple and the M in Microsoft. To the untrained eye, they were genuine URLs.

It's terrible from them but I used to get them from my bank, too.
 
Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
A bit OT but even the companies that use too many emails and junk mail admit, indirectly, that it is a waste of time. I couple of years back I received a text from my credit card people MBNA, it read: "You are about to receive a letter from us, it has a red diagonal stripe on the back left corner of the envelope. Please open it as it is your new credit card."

I thought it quite amusing that they have to take measures to stop their useful mail going direct to the recycle bin.
 
T

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
I setup an anti phishing programme for the FCO. It included a plugin for Outlook to report suspect emails.

One of the best bits was that you could run campaigns of various types and levels of complexity.

It worked. Failure rates at the first campaign were dismal - high 80's low 90's % of people caught.

3 or so months later single digit % failures.

Edit: I should add that the same people were very often not targeted in each campaign. We used the results of each to educate the users each time to help them to recognise the signs.

It is why emails like the above absolutely infuriate me.
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Tony1044 said:
I setup an anti phishing programme for the FCO. It included a plugin for Outlook to report suspect emails.

One of the best bits was that you could run campaigns of various types and levels of complexity.

It worked. Failure rates at the first campaign were dismal - high 80's low 90's % of people caught.

3 or so months later single digit % failures.

Edit: I should add that the same people were very often not targeted in each campaign. We used the results of each to educate the users each time to help them to recognise the signs.

It is why emails like the above absolutely infuriate me.
Click to expand...

Nice. Are you allowed to mention the FCO? I once did some mainframe consultancy at the government place in Cheltenham with the big satellite dishes in the front garden, I'm not allowed to even mention that I was ever there.....
 
T

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
ubuysa said:
Nice. Are you allowed to mention the FCO? I once did some mainframe consultancy at the government place in Cheltenham with the big satellite dishes in the front garden, I'm not allowed to even mention that I was ever there.....
Click to expand...

I worked at the big donut shaped one down there.

Yeah the stuff I did at the FCO is on my CV. As long as I don't mention specifics such as software names and versions, it's cool for the security level it was at.

Some of the other places I've worked though. Not so much.

I gave all that up though. It was getting beyond ridiculous - at one point, because of where I was, I had to tell them of where I was going on holiday so they could check if the flights overflew any undesirable airspace. And if it did - couldn't go there.

That's when I decided enough was enough. It was just too onerous.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Yes.. also if we're discussing user behaviours, the practice of telling other people your password to see if they think it's any good is probably not a good one to foster either.
 
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