Can we talk about spotting a fake login page while booking a table last night?

I was making a reservation through what I thought was the restaurant's official site... and almost entered my credentials before noticing the odd SSL certificate. It felt like a tiny victory to catch it and use their app instead. What subtle signs do you look for to verify site legitimacy?

3 comments

3 Comments

shah.faith12d ago

Odd SSL certificate? Also check for misspellings in the URL bar.

owens.nancy10d ago

Consider how public networks can spoof certificates too, @shah.faith. I once got a warning on a coffee shop connection for a site I use every day.

the_felix12d ago

How many times have I ignored a weird certificate warning just to get to a site faster? I'm probably the reason those phishing tutorials use people like me as examples. Once, I was in a hurry and misspelled a banking URL, ended up on a fake site that looked identical. My browser threw up every warning flag, but I clicked through because I needed to pay a bill. Learned my lesson after that scare, now I actually read the URL and check for the lock icon. Trust me, taking two seconds to verify saves a lot of headache later.