Test your e-mail program

My last posting, Defending against a phishing e-mail message, described a JavaScript trick bad guys use to make a link appear to go one place when it really goes somewhere else.

So you can test if your e-mail program (or Webmail system) falls for this type of forgery, I created a test e-mail message.

To receive my test e-mail message, send an e-mail to:

[e-mail]

It does not matter what, if anything, is in the subject or the body of your message.

The test e-mail message contains a link that appears to go to CNET, but really goes to my personal Web site. When you move the mouse over the test link, you should see my personal Web site in the status bar. If however, you see the silly message below, then your e-mail program is vulnerable to manipulation with JavaScript.

Hope you pass the test.

[dog321]

Email Programs

Oh! This is not good, So how do we fix this, or if I place my mouse over the url I will get the address that it's going to. your test was An eye opener. until I know how to fix this I will not send emails to anyone I dont know.

[mhinnewyork]

Try to turn off JavaScript

To "fix" this try to turn off JavaScript. I can't imagine a valid need for JavaScript in an email message.

Version 1 of Thunderbird had an option for the use of JavaScript. By default, JavaScript was disabled. This option seems to have disappeared from Thunderbird in version 2. It no longer does JavaScript at all.

There is always the option to view email in plain text format, but that's pretty drastic. It means looking at a lot of HTML code.

Michael Horowitz

[killerbee101]

hello can you tell how to put alert on my yahoo email as i missing my mail