We all get fake(phishing) email messages and today I wanted to investigate one I get on a regular basis. It’s supposed to be from a company I formerly did business with so I was curious to see what it was about.

I don’t typically open suspicious email messages on my smartphone or Microsoft Windows computers; I save that for my Linux computers. From my experience, Linux is more robust and secure than other operating systems and I have never experienced a virus in Linux. I see Windows viruses quite often.  

To view the internals of the message, Mozilla Firefox browser assists me. I browse to my web mail interface website with Firefox.  The email message is opened and I right-click on a hyper-link in the message. From the pop-up menu, I select “Inspect Element” at the bottom of the menu. This opens a split window which allows me to see the link’s destination. I wasn’t surprised when the title said one thing but it really takes the reader to a different web location. Now I know this is a phishing email message.

Be careful when examining phishing emails- do it on a Linux, Mac or a non-critical Windows computer.  Just don’t do it on an important computer.

 

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