What is a scam email?
In order to recognise email scams, it’s important to understand what they are and what forms they come in. Attackers usually send those out to steal money or sensitive information. One of the methods this can be done by is called ‘phishing’, where the attacker tricks you into sending over sensitive information by appearing to be a trusted sender. They may also insist that you install malware – which is intended to extract data from your services and devices, for the attackers’ own financial gain and unlawful access to the victim’s sensitive information.
How to recognise scam emails
Attackers mislead you into thinking they are a trusted sender; their domain name may appear to be correct but watch out for small misspellings, by changing just one letter they are trying to impersonate a businesses’ domain name in order to gain your trust and information.
A real organisation will never contact you from a public email domain such as ‘outlook’ or ‘gmail’, therefore it’s crucial to check where the email is coming from. It’s also vital to check the email address rather than just the name of the sender, attackers can set their names to whatever they like but it’s their email domain that will distinguish them from a legitimate organisation.
Attackers know that the longer the victim thinks about something the more likely they are to notice faults in it; therefore, they try to avoid this by creating a sense of urgency – giving you no time to look for warning signs. Many scam emails insist that you must act right away or else something bad will happen.
Phishing emails can also come in the form of a phone call or a text message, usually with a suspicious attachment such as a link or a downloadable software. The purpose of those is for the victim to enter sensitive information such as account data and card details, which the attacker can now illegally access. If the attachment takes you to a destination address that doesn’t match the content of the email, you can be sure you have just come across a scam.
Protect yourself from scam
Keep up to date with new phishing tactics so you can identify one when you come across it. New scamming techniques are the ones that the victims are most likely to fall for as they aren’t aware that they even exist.
Do not open any attachments until you are fully sure they are coming from a legitimate organisation, if you’re unsure whether the attachment is safe or not, do not click on it – hover over it if you must. Always check the file extensions and become aware of file extensions which are safe, and which ones are labelled as dangerous. File attachments with a double extension are almost always unsafe, the last file extension is the one that you should assess.
Install a firewall, an antivirus software and an anti-phishing tool which will check for suspicious actives, alert you about them and keep you safe from attackers. Make sure to keep those up to date as new scams are always being developed, also ensure that your browser is up to date as popular browsers often develop new security patches.
Phishing attempts can also take form in pop-up windows, in general you shouldn’t trust pop up messages especially ones that claim to have found issues with your computer. A real organisation would never inform you of faults in a pop-up form.
Ensure to always check a site’s security by looking for a ‘https’ in the site’s URL, followed by a closed lock icon beside it, the ‘s’ and the icon stand for ‘secure’.
If unsure whether an email is safe; contact the company directly through their website for advice.