Web Address Safety – Think First, Click Later

Most Internet safety tips include advice to be cautious about clicking links -- whether you get them in e-mail or as the result of an online search -- and for good reason. A careless click may leave you or your computer vulnerable.

Simply landing on a disreputable Web site could result in the download of malicious software downloaded to your computer without your knowledge. Or it may exposed you to an identity theft scam, like giving your credit card information for a fraudulent purchase or entering personal information into a bogus "longevity calculator." Even the best firewalls and antispyware and antivirus software can’t defend you from truly careless actions online.

So, how do you evaluate the safety of a link?

• If the Web address is not one you are already familiar with, check it out before you visit. If it is a shopping site, check with the Better Business Bureau or look at seller reviews on comparison shopping sites like PriceGrabber or CNET Shopper. Internet Explorer 7 has an Phishing Filter that colors the address bar yellow or red based on the level of threat.

I prefer McAfee SiteAdvisor because it shows me clearly whether a site has been marked safe, to use caution, or unsafe.

McAfee SiteAdvisor gives the green light to the first two sponsored sites but suggests that the last is unsafe.

• Do NOT assume that sponsored sites are safe. A sponsored site is one in which the company is specifically paying the search engine to top the list of results. As you can clearly see in the example above (), one of three sponsored sites in this Windows Live Search has been flagged as a high risk site by McAfee’s SiteAdvisor.

  Sadly, you cannot rely on search engine providers to have their consumers’ best interests at heart. A study by McAfee of search engine safety found sponsored results are still two-and-a-half times more likely to return risky Web sites than non-sponsored results. (Read my article about this.)

• If someone sends you a link in e-mail or instant message, or posts a link on a social networking site, it’s safer to type the address to the site yourself instead of clicking the link. This allows you to be sure the link isn’t taking you to a fake site that is meant to appear legitimate.

Unfortunately, not all sites allow you to see the URL or even identify the company offering the ad –as in the ads shown below in Windows Live and MSN IM (). Neither pointing to the address or right-clicking it provide any information about the source or legitimacy of the site. This is particularly troubling because the host sites do NOT guarantee the safety of the links to users.

When in doubt, don’t click. If you can’t establish with reasonable certainty that a link is safe, don’t click it.

Think before u click.

Linda