How to Detect a Fraudulent E-mail Message?

Common wisdom suggests that you watch out for a number of things which might be evidence of a forgery...

Indirect invitation. "Dear valued customer", "Dear reader", "In attention to [service name here] customers", absence of your first and last name in the message is often the fingerprint of a scam.
The e-mail was received to an address you do not use as an address for this particular service, the "To:" field of the message contains only e-mail address, the "To:" field is empty or contains recipients that are unknown to you. This is because widespread phishing attacks are usually done using e-mail address databases gathered by or for spammers. Naturally, in this case, the cheaters do not know your name.
Urgency. People usually make mistakes when they are in a hurry. If you are a power seller on eBay and an email says your account will be closed in 48 hours, you will worry for sure. And when you worry and rush, you probably will not notice that you are taken to a counterfeit site and will give your account data to the cheater.
Hyperlinks spoofing. You see the "http://www.yourbank/Login" link in the message, but if you hover the mouse cursor over the link, you will see that it points to "http://www.spoofedbanksite.com/Login".

Web sites which teach you how to detect whether the e-mail is a scam usually end up with a picture like the following one.

When we were developing Scam Sensor, we looked through tons of fraudulent e-mails. And, many of them are works of fraudulent art!

Just take a look at the following message:

It does look legit: it addresses a proper e-mail, tooltip shows the same hyperlink you see in the message. You do not even have to turn on images which are "off" by default! But this is phishing email. And now imagine that your company is the only target, and your accountant sees her name instead of the "Dear bank customer" line...

How can Scam Sensor help?

Questions, Answers and Facts

We already use spam filtering software. Why use Scam Sensor?

As experience shows, modern anti-spam filters are very easy to spoof, especially if you are a target of a personalized phishing attack. Besides, spam filtering might be ineffective for certain types of phishing attacks. You can even white-list an address that will be used by phishers and therefore compromise your e-mail safety.

Should I use Scam Sensor instead of my favorite email program?

Of course no! Scam Sensor is an add-on to Outlook Express and Microsoft® Office Outlook® programs. You simply install Scam Sensor and it seamlessly becomes a part of aforementioned programs. No additional configuration, training and learning needed. Scam Sensor does its job automatically while you read emails as you usually do.

We use an anti-phishing toolbar for Internet browsing. Isn't it enough?

This is good, but not good enough. Anti-phishing toolbars are useful when you are directed to the malicious site by another site. The chances that you will get a link to a forged site from an e-mail message rather than from another site are much higher. Here is where Scam Sensor comes into play. Please also note that phishing sites might not just gather the information, but also use browser tricks or security holes to compromise your computer and data by installing spyware or viruses. It is much safer to detect possible threats right in an e-mail, than to do this online on a malicious web site.