 |
Keep Your AdWords Account Safe: Don’t Fall For Phishing!Posted by Joe on May 28, 2008 in Google AdWords |
Recently, there have been reports that AdWords users have received fraudulent emails that appear to be from Google - but they are not. These fraudulent emails (otherwise known as “phishing emails”) ask users to update their billing information, edit their account information, review a disapproved ad, or accept new AdWords terms and conditions. Please be mindful of these fake emails, and as my Google Adwords representative has said, “Please remember that Google’s AdWords team will never send an unsolicited message asking for your password or other sensitive information by email or through a link.”
You can identify the fraudulent emails because they will come from this address: adwords-noreply@google.com. Edit: Thanks to one of our fantastic readers, they pointed out that your daily reports come from this email. So, the emails even come from an apparent “valid” address, but don’t be tricked; Google will never send you an email to ask for information.
Also, my Google respentative provided a helpful list of tips for avoiding phishing scams in general, and I thought I’d share them with you:
Tips on how to avoid phishing:
- Don’t reply to or click on links in emails that ask for personal, financial, or account information.
- Check the message headers. The From: address and the Return-path should reference the same source.
- Instead of clicking the links in emails, go to the websites directly by typing the web address into your browser, cut and paste or use bookmarks.
- If on a secure page, look for “https” at the beginning of the URL and the padlock icon in the browser.
- Keep your computer’s antivirus, spyware, browser, and security patches up to date and regularly run system scans.
- Review your accounts regularly and check for unauthorized activity.
- Use a browser that has a phishing filter (Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera).
For further reading on these phishing emails, you can check out this helpful post over at Google’s blog.
Be safe!
- Happy 4th of July from PPC Hero!
- Happy Holidays from PPC Hero!
- Happy Halloween from PPC Hero!
- Use Trust Symbols & Credibility Elements to Increase Conversions
- Google Automatic Matching Test Only Generated 1 Click!
May 29th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Sorry, for the confusion. I mean that the emails will come from this email, but they are not valid emails from Google. I’ll update the post. Thanks.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:44 am
The fantastic reader is quite harsh with his constructive criticism no? Anyways, great article — phishing can happen to the best of people!
May 30th, 2008 at 12:36 am
[...] Keep Your AdWords Account Safe: Don’t Fall For Phishing! , The Adventures of PPC Hero [...]
May 31st, 2008 at 5:34 am
[...] of Google AdWords now have to be on the looking for the phishing e-mails as well. According to PPC Hero, phishers have been sending out e-mails to Google AdWords customers: Recently, there have been [...]