Email Spoofing and Email phishing attacks are more rampant than ever. Phishing Emails flow right into your Mailbox all around the year. Here are some tips on identifying a phishing or spoofed email.
Follow 5 Email Phishing and Email Spoofing Prevention Tips and keep your inbox as well as business safe:
- Watch Out before clicking
Many links are embedded in the body of the emails. If the link address looks weird, hover your mouse over the links but do not click. If you would still like to explore, open a new window in the browser and type the URL and check if it is legitimate or not. A tip-off for fake sites is poor quality images used in company logo as well as other graphics. So this is very crucial to checkout as Email Phishing and Email Spoofing Prevention Tips
2. Analyze the Salutation
A legitimate email for a reputed firm will address you by your given name or last name, unlike addressing as “Valued Customer or Chosen Customer”. If such vague salutation is being used, beware and think before trusting or responding to such an email.
3. Prying Requests
Be suspicious of emails which are requesting for your PAN Number, Passport Number, bank account PIN or any such sensitive information. Legitimate banks, as well as other sites, would never ask for such information via email.
4. Don’t trust sender’s email address
The sender’s email address may claim to be from a bank but the actual email address may be something else like bank_name@hotmail.com.Bank email addresses should not be using public domains like Hotmail, Gmail, yahoo etc for sending mails, they normally own their own public internet accounts for which their email address may look much like customercare@bankname.com. It is one of the best practice to just not open mails from an unknown sender, anyway, if the sender is known and something is urgent, he will definitely have your contact number.
5. Promote digitally signed and encrypted emails
Digital signature proves authorship and prevents tampering, and assures that the email has come from a legitimate sender. Encryption provides security to the email content and helps to maintain privacy. Thus the use of digitally signed and encrypted emails should be promoted.
We have to be more vigilant in protecting ourselves online. Scammers are just there in all angles to get you if you don’t pay enough attention, even when you know stuff. Thus knowing the above tips does not suffice but actually practicing them will help you to be safe online. Share these tips with your friends and family to avoid them being the victims growing spoofing and phishing attacks!
Hope you will practice all 5 Email Phishing and Email Spoofing Prevention Tips to make sure you are not the next Victim.
