Covid Vaccine Appointment "Portal" Website - How to Check Legitimacy of Website?

harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 16:52
Last edited 02/08/2021 - 16:00 by 1 other user

I received a link to a Covid vaccine "portal" website that apparently helps identify the next Pfizer vaccine appointment time among several vaccination locations.
This link is being shared on social media and being forwarded on.

The site looks suspicious to me for several reasons.

I'd like to ask the original "sharer" of the link to stop circulating the links until they are sure of the website's authenticity. The website certainly is targeting a big need at the moment, with people searching for next available appointment times and so the site "hit" rates could likely be rapidly rising.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to find out if the links / buttons on the website are malicious / contain viruses etc and general tips on how to check out the legitimacy of the website?

I'm not sure whether the rules allow me to share the website name (or whether its even wise to).

Also, just warning people to be mindful of responses from people who might step in and say it is legitimate without explaining why.

Mods - your advice/comments would be appreciated if you'd like to step in.

Internet

Comments

  • bobbified on 31/07/2021 - 17:06

    The site looks suspicious to me for several reasons.

    …mindful of responses from people who might step in and say it is legitimate without explaining why.

    I have no idea what website you're referring to.

    You're asking people to explain why it's legitimate, yet, you're not explaining the reasons why you think it looks illegitimate.

    You can post the web address here and use something like (dot) to replace the actual dot so that it's not a clickable link and have a warning attached. The more techsavvy people here would know what to do with it.

    • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 17:14

      Thanks @bobbified.

      I'm not tech oriented but here's what was suspicious to me.

      1. I went to the "About" section, and all there was, was a generic email address with a domain that was very non-descript. Nothing else.
      2. The spelling of "St Vincent's Hospital" looked odd to me, it was spelt as "Saint Vincent Hospital".
      3. The message about "This will take 6 minutes" looks very off to me.
      4. Very little outside information about this website.

      The website is cvidqueue.com (I think it's listed as http://cvidqueue.com) replace the mask with the correct letter of the alphabet

      • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 17:16

        For some reason my post above with the website name which I added an asterisk to, to replace a letter of the alphabet, got auto-edited. If you think you can safely check it out, you'll know what letter of the alphabet is missing.

        • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 17:17

          sorry, missed the second half of your post @bobbified.

          the link was to covidqueue(dot)com

          And correction to my 4 point list above. 4. I could find NO external information about the circulated website based on my searches thus far.

      • bobbified on 31/07/2021 - 17:21
        +3

        The website does look dodgey, but the "book" buttons lead back to the official government websites where bookings can be made.

        I don't claim to be an expert, but it seems like someone has created a website that aggregates the relevant data from the government websites (in this case, the available appointment times) into a more user friendly interface to make it easier for the user to choose from. Clicking on the link redirects the user to the relevant section of the government site.

        Seems like whoever created it was doing the community a favour because the people that created the actual government site failed to consider that sort of functionality.

        • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 17:49
          -1

          Thanks @bobbified for taking a look.

          Are you able to check out what's "behind" the big blue "Get in Line" button? The wording of that also seems suss, come to think of it!!!

          • bobbified on 31/07/2021 - 17:58

            @harn.mui:

            "Get in Line" button

            Clicking on it pulls the information from the government sites with the available times and creates a corresponding "Book" link for that particular time. The "Book" links redirects the user back to the government site to make a booking.

            • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 18:13
              -2

              @bobbified: Thanks for your comments @bobbified

              Further comments on this website/ general tips on how to check legitimacy of a website are welcome.

  • kerfuffle on 31/07/2021 - 17:23

    It kind of looks like it's a scraper to see when available appointments are. Didn't click too far into it.

    Basically, what bobbified said.

  • CyberMurning on 31/07/2021 - 17:26
    -4

    If it allows you to get Pz but you are not year 12 students then it is fake.

  • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 17:52
    -2

    Does anyone have the ability to check out what's behind the big blue "Get in Line" without clicking on it?

    I hovered over it and at one stage could see an indication of where it might direct me to, but then it no longer showed up.

  • deme on 31/07/2021 - 18:26

    What's the URL

    • harn.mui on 31/07/2021 - 18:30

      its covidqueue(dot).com

  • deme on 31/07/2021 - 18:32
    +1

    Well it's not official, but looks fine the links all go to .nsw.gov.au

  • Hithere on 31/07/2021 - 19:13
    +1

    Analysis of the website
    "Covidqueue.com"

    1% Very bad trust score : Warning, only for experienced users!

    Malware detected (source : AlienVault) Check the source.
    The domain name is very recent (less than 6 months)
    The owner of the domain name is hidden: check privacy policies!
    The creation of the domain name is rather recent
    Short life expectancy domain

  • bong on 01/08/2021 - 10:57
    +4

    https://old.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/ovhunp/i_struggl…

    The source and the owner of the website.

  • harn.mui on 03/08/2021 - 18:39

    Many thanks everyone, and @bong and @kerfuffle for those links. It's greatly appreciated.

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