7.3 How to protect your devices from phishing
Recognizing a phishing attempt is not so intuitive, but some information may help you.
Pay attention to some inconsistencies in the message (e.g. email addresses that look strange or text of the message written in an unprofessional way).
Phishing attacks use strong emotions to cloud the user’s reason at the expense of his vigilance.
The first mistake could be to act impulsively.
For example, sometimes in the email, you may be asked for a loan for a serious illness, or on the other hand, a sum that a stranger would like to donate to you.
Going practical, below are some other signs that help recognize a phishing attempt:
The email proposes an offer that is too good to be true. It could, for example, communicate a lottery win, a valuable prize, or other great news.
- You recognize the sender, but he is not someone you have contact with. The name of a known sender that you don’t typically communicate with is suspicious, especially if the content of the email is in no way related to your normal job responsibilities. The same is true if you are “cc” in an email sent to people you don’t know or a group of colleagues from different business units.
- The tone of the message is downright alarming. Be careful when an email is characterized by language that creates a sense of urgency. As mentioned, consider whether it urges you to click and take action immediately i.e. to prevent your account from being closed. In fact, remember that trusted organizations never ask for personal information on the Internet (such as passwords, etc.).
- The message contains unexpected or unusual attachments. Such attachments can contain types of online threats.
- The message contains suspicious links. Even when you don’t notice any of the above, don’t trust hyperlinks contained in emails. You can rather hover your cursor over the link to read the real URL. Keep your eyes peeled for minor misspellings on otherwise familiar sites, as they are scam indicators. It is always advisable to type the URL yourself or do further Google searches rather than clicking on the link in the email.
- Train yourself to recognize phishing signs and try to act responsibly when checking emails, reading Facebook posts, or playing online.
Here are some important tips from Adam Kujawa to guard against phishing:
- Never click on a link in an email without first making sure the destination is safe. If you are undecided, try searching for more information on the internet by typing the sender or text message on a search engine and matching keywords such as “phishing”. This will let you know if there are known phishing attacks using the same methods.
- Do not open emails from unknown senders.
- For added protection, when you receive an email from a source you deem unsafe, manually navigate to the provided link by typing the legitimate website address into your browser. * If you are asked to provide sensitive information, make sure the page URL starts with “HTTPS” rather than “HTTP”. The “S” indicates the term “secure”, it is not a guarantee of legitimacy, but most legitimate sites use HTTPS precisely for greater security.
- Scroll the cursor over the link to see if it is consistent with the text; not only: if, for example, it would take you to paypal.com, act in this way: go to the official PayPal website and compare the link with the one contained in the email. Finally, in addition to these tips, it is also useful to install some appropriate free software that allows you to identify threats and ensure additional security. One of these is AVG.