“Did you order anything lately?” my wife asked me.
“Not that I can think of,” I said.
“We got this e-mail about a FedEx package that they couldn’t deliver on the 17th,” she said. “It has a ‘print receipt’ button.”
Don’t click on that button.
The e-mail looked like it might be legitimate, but there was still that little nagging detail: Neither of us could remember ordering anything. Here’s an important trick. The e-mail had a tracking number.
I copied the tracking number, went to Google, and pasted it in. Whenever you enter a legitimate tracking number from any shipping service into Google, Google recognizes it and gives you a direct link to the appropriate shipper’s web page. It’s faster than trying to enter the tracking number into UPS.com or FedEx.com.
This particular “tracking number” got me nothing when I entered it into Google.
But, just to be sure, I went to fedex.com, fumbled around to find the tracking page, and entered the tracking number there. It didn’t recognize it either.
And then I saw this. FedEx knows about the scam.
But that’s how you can easily vet suspicious, unexpected e-mail messages from shippers.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.