Web Site Impersonation Scams

[Rachel D.]

I was trying to buy some books on Amazon a little bit ago. When I logged in and went to the shopping cart, Safari started giving me warnings about the security certificate saying that there was a host mismatch. I tried it on Firefox and it also had a warning, saying that it could be another site posing as Amazon.com and that I should not proceed.

When I went back to Amazon after that, the homepage looked different somehow. It also no longer did the auto-fill when I typed something into the search box and had a lot less stuff on the homepage. When I clicked Sign In, it told me I had to enable cookies first; the thing is, they're already enabled. So I did a Google search for a screenshot of the Amazon homepage to see if it really did look different or if it was just me.

Real from Google (I don't know how old it is):

Fake? The main difference was the menu on the left and the overall lack of clutter.

I waited about 30 minutes and hit refresh, and now the real one is back, functioning as before. The items from my shopping cart are gone, though, and it didn't ask me to enable cookies. I guess I'll go ahead and order the books, but I hope it's OK now. It's scary that things like this can happen; warnings have come up on Facebook before and other places once in a while. I don't know how they do it, but don't these hackers have anything better to do?

 

[Liesje]

Are your browsers up to date? Is your date and time on the computer set correctly?

 

[Canadiens1131]

If you went to Amazon.com from your browser's address bar than you should be fine.

If you visited Amazon via a link in your email (which might have been fake) or a partner or affiliate link on another site, than you may have tried to login to a fake site.

Either case, you should use best practice and change your Amazon and email passwords immediately.

Furthermore, never use the same password for your email account as you use for other e-commerce sites.

 

[Rachel D.]

Are your browsers up to date? Is your date and time on the computer set correctly?

I think so. It was only happening temporarily, so I don't think it's my computer.

If you went to Amazon.com from your browser's address bar than you should be fine.

If you visited Amazon via a link in your email (which might have been fake) or a partner or affiliate link on another site, than you may have tried to login to a fake site.

Either case, you should use best practice and change your Amazon and email passwords immediately.

Furthermore, never use the same password for your email account as you use for other e-commerce sites.

It was from the address bar; I typed the address in several times and it kept taking me to the bizarro Amazon. If both Firefox and Safari hadn't been giving me warnings, I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it and might have overlooked the other warning signs. The Amazon password is not the same as my email, but I will change it just to be safe. This whole thing is very odd.

 

[corianderstem]

That happens to me with Facebook all the damned time (in Firefox - always at home, but never at work, where I also use Firefox).

Ever since I started using https for the secure version, every so often I'll get that certificate error message. And then sometimes I get some version of an "access denied" error message (although that might be a Facebook error, like it's down for maintenance or something?).

It drives me crazy.

 

[brooklynmike]

Looks like it could be a phishing scam. I'd use ccleaner (Google it) to clean out any mischief. Then I'd change up the passwords and be sure you type the address correctly or simply bookmark it.

 

[Dfit00]

The solution is to use Opera instead of Firefox or any other antique browser.

 

[Canadiens1131]

The solution is to use Opera instead of Firefox or any other antique browser.

That's fairly misinformed, to be honest.

All modern browsers (even most recent Internet Explorer) support a protection system from fake phishing attacks, all modern browsers support HTTPS encryption.

The solution is always being educated about potential threats on the Internet, not hoping to rely on your browser. Google Chrome, Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9...these will all do you well. Personally I am most impressed with Chrome at the moment, but the differences are negligible.

 

[Dfit00]

Thank you for calling me an idiot.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Anytime