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This quiz is dumb af. The two that weren’t scams didn’t give you enough info to identify if they aren’t and they both just as likely to be scams? And at the end they said it was still possible for me to get scammed even though I called every single item a scam. How am i gonna get scammed if i assume they are all scams?
Exactly. There was no context.
Did the person actually sign up for GeekSquad AV? They didn’t say.
Does the person actually have a Facebook account? They didn’t say.
Plus I always assume anything that references Facebook in an email is a scam.
It’s never a bad thing to be overly cautious when it comes to this stuff
Honestly, I did pretty well (except the last one which I had no way of knowing was a legitimate web site – and what the hell kind of name is that for a legitimate site anyway? But I digress…), but I would have taken steps to verify every single one of these before taking any further action. I just inherently distrust email and SMS messages.
If you take the quiz it all you don’t get a 100%. That’s the real test.
Psh. That last one could easily be a scam. Maybe scammers haven’t tried the fake class action settlement website angle yet, but they will, and I have no intention of being their first victim.
Half the emails in my junk inbox are ‘class action settlement’ emails, so it’s definitely an angle they’re trying (presumably with some success)
Yeah even if the last one is not a scam, it is a scam to me, even if I knew about it. I’d go and apply on the official website rather than from the email itself.
I didn’t click the link, it felt scammy. Did I pass?
This is not a good article
To know if an email is a scam I would check the domain of the link it’s sending, which this doesn’t provide
Also you shouldn’t trust the sender address of an email, you can spoof that
I’m not falling for that.
This looks complicated. I will just DM you my account number, address and credit card details, ok?
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This reminds me of the site to see if your email address had been pwned or not.
Well, if you looked yourself up, I’ve got some bad news for you….You’re wrong on this one, as the other comment noted.
Have I Been Pwned has a database of leaked credentials, with notes on where the data originated, when said site was hacked, etc. It is an incredibly good resource to see if any site you use has leaked your data in a breach, and how compromising that data is (legible or unsalted passwords, credit card information, etc.).
It is a tool used to react intelligently to data breaches. You input your email address, and it tells you if your email address is present in any leaked data sets. If so, you go change that password as fast as you can.
For your comment to make any sense, giving someone your email address means you’ve been “Pwned”. I guess you don’t subscribe to a lot of newsletters, then? How does entering your email address give anyone an advantage, apart from the knowledge that it exists? 🤔
The exact same feature is baked into Chrome’s password manager, 1password, and many others. Does that mean that users of those services have been “Pwned”? 😐
Damn, I got the antivirus one wrong because it wasn’t clear I didn’t buy the thing in this scenario.
Yep. It relies on information not present in the example. It’s intended for most people to get wrong.
Similarly the Facebook one genuinely looks like a scam unless you know of the Facebook case.
It’s intended for most people to get wrong.
So what you’re saying is… …this article is a scam?
While yes, that’s an accurate quip, it actually does highlight a deeper issue in the industry. If everyone passes your scam test, they don’t need to buy your scam test.
Additionally, scam emails aren’t 50/50 yes/no pass/fail. It’s more a combination of red flags to gauge how risky the email is to click on links, reply to, download attachments from, etcetera.
Currently the scam testing industry has no way to rate an individuals ability other than how many scam emails they did or didn’t click on. That is a false metric. It incites scam testers to trick people to justify their value to the customer.
Maybe a better way would be to stick with pentesters. The real trick is if they can actually scam someone.
I mean, they are two different aspects of security. Pen testers are important, but they can’t help you if an employee clicks on the wrong link.
Isn’t social engineering a part of what they do? The goal would be to train employees to look out for both pentesters and real scammers.
Still, who pays 419$ for an antivirus?
I don’t know. Isn’t a Windows license in the hundreds too?
Yes, but windows is an entire operating system, with an antivirus included
I just assume everything is a scam now 🫠
If you clicked that link then, no, you are not smarter than a scammer.
So every question was a scam or not quite a scam. Sure.
I feel like this link is a scam itself lol
Not sure how paying for an item online using Zelle is in itself a scam. The scam would only come later if the stranger had requested your bank info, or you reply to a dodgy email, etc, but so far nothing untrustworthy had happened yet? I don’t think that was a good question.