I clicked on four sneaky online scams on purpose – to show you how they work
Ed Bott / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNETI’m not a sucker, but I played one on the internet last month — purely in the interest of science, of course. My text messages and email spam folder are filled with the usual assortment of shady stuff from online crooks. As a public service, I decided to play along with the bad guys to see what happens.Also: The best VPN services (and how to choose the right one for you)Before we get started, let me stress one thing: Don’t try this yourself. I did my experimentation in virtual machines and sandboxed environments where I knew my personal data wasn’t exposed. You might be tempted to click a link, just to see what happens. That’s a very bad idea, because what happens can sometimes be catastrophic. So, a little bit louder now: Don’t try this at home.The scams and online attempted attacks I encountered were all depressingly common. You’ve probably run across similar examples on your own devices. None of these crooks are criminal masterminds; for the most part, they’re petty thieves trying to get you to do something that will give them access to your identity or money. Here’s what I found. 1. The fake security upgrade We’ve all been trained to pay attention to security alerts, so when I received an email telling me that “suspicious activity” had been detected on my Wells Fargo Securities account, I was alarmed. Mostly because I don’t have an account with that institution, but these crooks are playing a numbers game: Some percentage of the people they reach with this mass mail will have one of those accounts. So, on behalf of Wells Fargo customers everywhere, I clicked that link, which took me first to a page that simulated a Captcha, and then to this scary-looking dialog: More
