Phishing scams have been revolving around since the Internet was born, and they are not planning to stop any time soon. Nobody would want to fall prey to a phishing scam.
Although, there is a good reason why such scams will continue. Cybercriminals make massive profits from these phishing attempts. Luckily, there are a lot of ways to avoid becoming a victim yourself.
One way to determine a phishing attack is that it may be disguised to look like it has come from a legitimate company. Such emails may even ask you to fill in your details, but they won’t contain your name.
It is not at all safe to click on links when you know you’re on an untrusted site. Clicking on links that are from random emails is not a smart move. You should hover the mouse over links that you are suspicious of.
Another way to identify such emails is to look for grammatical errors, typos, misspellings, or bad links to images in websites and emails.
Most phishing emails may start with “Dear Customer”. So you should be aware when you come across such emails. If you have your doubts, you should go directly to the source instead of clicking on the link.
If you haven’t visited your online accounts in a while, you should. There is a chance that someone might be having their own good time with it. If you’re skeptical about some suspicious activity, you should immediately log out from all your devices and change your password right after.
Pop-up windows may seem like legit components of a website. But, most often they are phishing attempts from cybercriminals. Many websites have an option for pop-up blocking which can be clicked on in the very beginning.
If someone anyhow manages to slip through the cracks, do not click on the “CANCEL” button. Such attempts can lead you to phishing sites.
People can be taught about the preventive measures that can be taken like never clicking on the link directly and instead of typing in the URL manually.
The best way to combat these threats is to educate users who are targeted. Many MNCs take this initiative to teach their entry-level employees about phishing attempts and how to recognize one if you see it in your inbox in the future.
Use some anti-malware software security systems. Many cybersecurity tools can detect if a link or an image looks too phishy. So even if you do fall for a phishing mail, your information would still be safe.
So take precautions, stay vigilant, and look-out for those phishy emails.
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