How to deal with those everyday spam emails trying to steal your data?
December 14, 2015
Cyber criminals have many different ways to steal personal information and money, but email scams are still among the most prevalent. These fraudulent e-mails appear to come from legitimate companies or sources and may include real company logos, content and even look like they are from a company manager, director or senior staff member’s email account . As this type of attack becomes more sophisticated, it is very difficult to tell if a message is fraudulent. However, there are some things you can be on the lookout for: Invoice redirection: These emails look to be from an existing Supplier who is ‘advising’ you that their bank account number has changed and they are now ‘providing’ you with new information to complete all future payments Attachments: Many email scams ask you to open attachments, which can then infect your computer with a virus for example, if spyware is downloaded to your computer, it can then record the keystrokes you use to log into your online accounts and then send that information back to the criminal. So be sure not to open attachments in suspicious e-mail messages. Requests for personal information in an e-mail message: Most legitimate businesses have a policy that they do not ask you for your personal information through e-mail. Be very suspicious of a message that asks for personal information even if it might look legitimate. Urgent wording: To increase the number of responses, criminals attempt to create a sense of urgency so that people immediately respond without Fake links: Criminals are getting very sophisticated in their ability to create misleading links. It is always best to type in the Web address or URL you know is correct into your. CV’s, invoices or credits due are a very common email format to download spyware viruses onto your PC All it takes is one employee to click the link or download the attachment and the cyber criminal is in. Here are a few pointers to stop the cyber criminal. Double check the email address – it might be different to the genuine one there may be a slight misspelling Don’t use the email ‘reply’ function, from within the received email Never open attachments to an email unless you are satisfied that the email(s) is genuine Look for any wording within the email that would be unusual for your company / supplier; e.g. asking you to “sort” or complete a “financial obligation” or a “wire transfer” Check the time stamp on any emails; this can sometimes indicate an email coming from somewhere it shouldn’t Google the email sender details and see if it is a spam email . Hope this helps Regards Lorcan www.dataxcel.ie P.S. Ireland’s leading provider of Marketing Data for your next customer recruitment campaign: Real Time Leads Telephone Data Email Data Postal data