Watch out for YouTube scams

There is a lot of dodgy stuff on the internet and you have to be aware of all the scams that can take place. Billions of emails are sent around the world every day and a large percentage of them are spam. These junk emails either directly or indirectly try to sell you stuff you don't need or that is useless or fake, or they try to infect your computer with spyware, viruses or other malicious software.

Spam filters mostly block these unwanted email messages, but they are never 100% effective and sometimes a few messages get through. Here is one that got through my spam filters:

This email claims to be from YouTube and it says that my video has been approved. There is a link to click and everything looks OK, but don't be deceived. Clicking any of the links could take you to a site that installs malware or rips you off and empties you bank balance.

I knew this was a scam because I've not posted any videos on YouTube recently (among other things), but to show you what happens I clicked the link. This would be a stupid thing to do in Windows, but I booted up a Linux distro in VirtualBox and clicked it in there. That's about as safe as you can get. Firstly, 99.9999% of malware doesn't work in Linux and secondly, I'm not sure it could get out of the virtual machine even if it did infect it. Here's what happened:

Instead of going to YouTube it took me to a site selling viagra and other drugs. I declined to buy any of the products on offer. An online store that gets you to visit by tricking you into clicking a link in a fake YouTube email isn't exactly reputable. Who know what would happen if I gave it my credit card details.

Clicking links in email messages like this can just as easily install malware if you are using Windows, so watch out for scams. Never click links in emails, even from reputable companies, unless you are absolutely sure they are OK. In this case the recommended action would be to type www.youtube.com into the browser's address box and log in to YouTube and see what the status of the videos were. You don't need to click links.