Over three billion phishing emails are sent daily, how do you figure out what’s safe and what isn’t?
What is a phishing email?
- It demands urgent action
- Poor grammar and spelling errors
- An unfamiliar greeting or salutation
- Requests for login credentials, payment information or sensitive data
- Offers that are too good to be true
- Suspicious or unsolicited attachments
- Inconsistencies in email addresses, links and domain names
How do you know you’ve been hacked?
- Your contacts receive messages that you did not send
- Your computer is slow and inconsistent performance
- Your online password is not working
- There is money missing from your online account
- You have received a ransomware message
- You have received a bogus antivirus alert
- You have new, unwanted toolbars in your browser
- You observe unusual patterns of network traffic
Suspicious about an email?
Opening an email is usually fairly safe, its the links and attachments you have to be aware of. Do not reply to it, click any links or download any attachments that could be after personal details.
If in doubt, don’t open it.
You’ve opened a dubious email, now what?
Do not forward or reply to the email to anyone else. Instead of deleting, mark it as junk or spam and this will help your email provider improve its recognition of email phishing attacks.
Check your computer for viruses or malware, your IT support will be able to help you with this. Involve your IT team to ensure any threats don’t spread further. With our managed IT solutions we proactively monitor your devices, stopping problems before they become disasters.
Protect Your Email Address
Don’t share personal information online; hackers scour social media sites, search public records and buy data and mailing lists from unscrupulous sources.
Use a password manager to protect your passwords and don’t use the same one on multiple sites.
Look to get Cyber Essentials Certified, add DMARC.
Further Information
From the National Cyber Security Centre read Phishing: Spot and report scam emails, texts, websites and calls and from the Stop Think Fraud Campaign read What To Do If You’ve Been Hacked.
