Emails are a useful tool for communication and have become almost indispensable for companies nowadays. Where invoices used to be sent by post, they are now often sent by email. In addition, it is a cheap way of communicating and an email is sent quickly.
There are only third parties who want to abuse this convenience. This often happens in the form of phishing emails. With these emails, malicious parties try to lure you to their website. Examples of this are emails that appear to come from your bank or from someone you know. The scammers hope that you open the email and then go to their website and leave your details that they can then abuse.
There are a number of points you can pay attention to that will significantly reduce the chance of opening a phishing email. Below are 12 points that you can easily apply and hopefully prevent you from falling prey to a phishing email.
The points you can pay attention to are:
The name of the sender can often be that of someone you know or an organization, but the email address is often not. If you are in doubt, it is easy to compare the email address with previous emails or contacts from your address book.
Checking the domain (the part after the @ sign) often gives away a lot. The scammers often do their best to make the email address resemble an original address as much as possible. Examples of these types of e-mail addresses are: rabobank_nl@gmail.nl, info@pakketpost.mobi, info@overheidd.com and info@mijnbezorgin-mijnpostnl.info. When you compare these email addresses, they look a bit like the original, but not at all.
The salutation of a phishing email often gives away a lot. If you receive the email in the name of someone you know, but the email starts with “dear sir/madam” or “dear customer”, you may already have doubts about this. In general, the emails are very impersonal.
The phishing emails often contain phrases in the subject line such as URGENT, IMPORTANT, your subscription expires today or Last warning. With these slogans they try to respond to your feelings and put pressure on you, so that you decide quickly. The advice is never to respond to this directly and if in doubt, always contact the sender.
The emails that scammers send usually contain spelling errors. In addition, conjugations, punctuation and the use of certain words are often incorrect. Things also sometimes go wrong in sentence construction because the texts are directly translated by Google Translate, but this happens less and less. If an email contains many spelling errors, you can almost assume that it comes from a scammer. Here too, delete the email immediately if in doubt or contact the sender if it is someone you know.
Perhaps the most important tip we can give is that you never just share your personal information! An email, text message or WhatsApp or message via social media is NEVER the way companies ask for data. If in doubt, always try to contact the company or person in question by telephone to verify everything.
A well-known trick that scammers use is pretending to be a friend, family member or colleague. Does the person just have a new e-mail address or a different number and is he asking for a favor or information? Always contact the person by telephone. The most well-known form is WhatsApp fraud. The scammers then pose as a friend, family member or colleague in need and ask for an amount of money to be transferred. Don't fall for it! Another well-known trick is that the scammer sends an email on behalf of the bank. They then show up with the excuse that your bank card has expired or needs to be replaced. They also use the excuse that data verification is needed to meet the latest security requirements. However, banks will never ask you for this information!
Malicious software can be sent via attachments. Never open an email attachment without knowing the sender. Especially if they are .zip or .rar files in the attachment. Ransomware can also be sent as an attachment, which you can read more about here. For example, invoices are always sent as .pdf and if in doubt, please contact us by telephone and/or delete the email.
Never just click on links in an e-mail message. It may be that the email and link seem official, but it refers to a phishing address. You can check this by hovering over the link with your mouse without clicking . It is of course advisable to delete the email immediately if you do not trust the link.
Try as best as possible to keep you and your colleagues informed of the latest phishing techniques. Make sure everyone is aware of the risks and what to look out for. Not everyone is equally sensitive to these types of scams.
It may be a no-brainer, but don't use the same password everywhere. If you do become a victim, the damage will in any case be limited.
Unfortunately, a standard virus scanner and a spam filter are not sufficient to stop the emails. Make sure you take extra measures to protect all your computers and mobile devices against phishing. You will have to take several measures to protect yourself against phishing, because there is no one solution.
Using your own common sense is perhaps the best protection. Do you receive an email or message that you are unsure about? It seems too good to be true, and then it often is. It's better to be cautious than reckless in cases like this. If you have received a phishing email from an acquaintance or organization, always inform them.
If you have fallen victim to phishing, there are a number of steps you can take to limit the damage.
Do you still need help after reading the tips or would you like more information? Contact us and we will advise you without obligation.
