Online dating alert: the new phishing scam to avoid

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“Phishing” may sound like a nice way to spend a day on a boat, but it’s actually a form of email trickery to get you to reveal your personal information to criminals. Most commonly, you’ll receive an email that purports to be from a real company, asking you to click on a link and confirm your password, social security number, or other data. The scammers can then use your password to attempt to break into your account on other sites, including banks or other services and infect your computer with malware.

According to Naked Security, there’s a new phishing scam that uses Match.com branding to convince people to click on a link to “resolve a security problem” and enter personal information:

Once you click the link, the site really doesn’t look much like Match.com:

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The ultimate lesson in this is not to click on links in an unsolicited email, no matter how familiar the sender seems. If you receive an email like this, you’re better off opening a new browser tab and going to Match.com for more information, or to contact their support staff.

Another dating site password leak…

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This time from eHarmony, it appears:

“After investigating reports of compromised passwords, we have found that a small fraction of our user base has been affected,” eHarmony said in a blog post. “We are continuing to investigate but would like to provide the following actions we are taking to protect our members.”

Via PCMag.com. Apparently there were 1.5 million passwords leaked.

Between the MilitarySingles password leak, and the LinkedIn leak that occurred simultaneous with this one, are you taking more care with your passwords? I’ve started using a trick I learned on Lifehacker to create unique passwords for every site using a combination of letters from the name of that site – I’d tell you more, but then I’d have to change all my passwords again!

How strong is your online dating password?

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The hacking of military dating site MilitarySingles.com has been examined, and while the crux of the security weakness came from the site’s upload architecture and poorly protected data, customers made themselves especially vulnerable by using weak passwords:

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How secure is the password you’re using on an online dating site? Test yours on the How Secure Is My Password? site, and if you get a poor rating, try adding numbers or other special characters, or try another tool.

Dating online is hard enough without the world finding out that your OKCupid.com password is “loveskittens”!