Can you spot a fake email?
Phishing is a scam that attempts to obtain sensitive information such as your passwords, banking information, credit card information and logins to other services.
92% of malware is delivered by email and the average cost of an attack on a mid-sized business is $1.6 million dollars. Here are 6 signs you can look for when reading a phishing email.
1. Urgency
Phishers and spammers want you to take action right away. There will be wording promting a sense of urgency such as your account is being closed, your funds are at risk, verify now or some other negative statement. Spammers want that emotional reaction so that you will ignore some of the other red flags listed below.
2. Suspicious Sender Address
Domain names can be purchased similar to ones they are trying to spoof. If your bank account is ACME bank, you will notice this says a c r n e, which r n together looks a lot like the m in a c m e . (acrne acme)
3. Generic Greeting
We live in a time where marketing is very personal. It usually is Hey there Joe. Here it is Sir/Ma'am. Most businesses that you have a personal relationship with will address you by name especially if action is required.
4. Spelling and Grammar Mistakes
Always look for spelling and grammar mistakes. You will see run-on sentences, misspelled words, odd phrases, and weird punctuation. In this exacmple, notice verifying is spelled incorrectly and the phrase you must do the needful is used.
5. Link to Domain
If you hover your cursor over a domain name link, at the bottom of the screen, you will see where the link is actually going. So even though you think you are going to acmebank or even acrnebank, you may be going to spoofdomain.com. Another red flag to look out for on domain names, are domain addresses that don't end in a .com, but end in another foreign domain such as a country code like .ru for Russia, or .de for Germany.
6. Suspicious Attachments
If you were not expecting an attachment from a sender, check with them to see if they actually sent you something. Do this by actually calling the sender. Once this attachemnt is downloaded, it gives the hacker access to your entire computer, which will give them access to your credentials and your conttact list. Common file types are.exe, .doc/.docx, and .pdf. Always verify.
How can you defeat or prevent this?
Techniques are evolving each day. The best way to limit phishing attacks is a combination of prevention and education. TierTek's security service can prevent many of these from ever reaching you and/or your users. To learn more, contact TierTek at support@tiertek.com or 727-350-9201.