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How do you recognize phishing emails and texts? Even as many of the scammers behind them have sophisticated their attacks, you can still pick out telltale signs.
Common to them all, every phishing is a cybercrime that aims to steal your sensitive info. Personal info. Financial info. Other attacks go right for your wallet by selling bogus goods or pushing phony charities.
You’ll find scammers posing as major corporations, friends, business associates, and more. They might try to trick you into providing info like website logins, credit and debit card numbers, and even precious personal info like your Social Security Number.
Phishing scammers often undo their own plans by making simple mistakes that are easy to spot once you know how to recognize them. Check for the following signs of phishing when you open an email or check a text:
It’s poorly written.
Even the biggest companies sometimes make minor errors in their communications. Phishing messages often contain grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and other blatant errors that major corporations wouldn’t make. If you see glaring grammatical errors in an email or text that asks for your personal info, you might be the target of a phishing scam.
The logo doesn’t look right.
Phishing scammers often steal the logos of the businesses they impersonate. However, they don’t always use them correctly. The logo in a phishing email or text might have the wrong aspect ratio or low resolution. If you have to squint to make out the logo in a message, the chances are that it’s phishing.
The URL doesn’t match.
Phishing always centers around links that you’re supposed to click or tap. Here are a few ways to check whether a link someone sent you is legitimate:
You can also spot a phishing attack when you know what some of the most popular scams are:
The CEO Scam
This scam appears as an email from a leader in your organization, asking for highly sensitive info like company accounts, employee salaries, and Social Security numbers. The hackers “spoof”, or fake, the boss’ email address so it looks like a legitimate internal company email. That’s what makes this scam so convincing — the lure is that you want to do your job and please your boss. But keep this scam in mind if you receive an email asking for confidential or highly sensitive info. Ask the apparent sender directly whether the request is real before acting.
The Urgent Email Attachment
Phishing emails that try to trick you into downloading a dangerous attachment that can infect your computer and steal your private info have been around for a long time. This is because they work. You’ve probably received emails asking you to download attachments confirming a package delivery, trip itinerary, or prize. They might urge you to “respond immediately!” The lure here is offering you something you want and invoking a sense of urgency to get you to click.
The “Lucky” Text or Email
How fortunate! You’ve won a free gift, an exclusive service, or a great deal on a trip to Las Vegas. Just remember, whatever “limited time offer” you’re being sold, it’s probably a phishing scam designed to get you to give up your credit card number or identity info. The lure here is something free or exciting at what appears to be little or no cost to you.
The Romance Scam
This one can happen completely online, over the phone, or in person after contact is established. But the romance scam always starts with someone supposedly looking for love. The scammer often puts a phony ad online or poses as a friend-of-a-friend on social media and contacts you directly. But what starts as the promise of love or partnership, often leads to requests for money or pricey gifts. The scammer will sometimes spin a hardship story, saying they need to borrow money to come visit you or pay their phone bill so they can stay in touch. The lure here is simple — love and acceptance.
Account Suspended Scam
Some phishing emails appear to notify you that your bank temporarily suspended your account due to unusual activity. If you receive an account suspension email from a bank that you haven’t opened an account with, delete it immediately, and don’t look back. Suspended account phishing emails from banks you do business with, however, are harder to spot. Use the methods we listed above to check the email’s integrity, and if all else fails, contact your bank directly instead of opening any links within the email you received.
While you can’t outright stop phishing attacks from making their way to your computer or phone, you can do several things to keep yourself from falling for them. Further, you can do other things that might make it more difficult for scammers to reach you.
The content and the tone of the message can tell you quite a lot. Threatening messages or ones that play on fear are often phishing attacks, such as angry messages from a so-called tax agent looking to collect back taxes. Other messages will lean heavily on urgency, like a phony overdue payment notice. And during the holidays, watch out for loud, overexcited messages about deep discounts on hard-to-find items. Instead of linking you off to a proper e-commerce site, they might link you to a scam shopping site that does nothing but steal your money and the account info you used to pay them. In all, phishing attacks indeed smell fishy. Slow down and review that message with a critical eye. It might tip you off to a scam.
Some phishing attacks can look rather convincing. So much so that you’ll want to follow up on them, like if your bank reports irregular activity on your account or a bill appears to be past due. In these cases, don’t click on the link in the message. Go straight to the website of the business or organization in question and access your account from there. Likewise, if you have questions, you can always reach out to their customer service number or web page.
Some phishing attacks occur in social media messengers. When you get direct messages, consider the source. Consider, would an income tax collector contact you over social media? The answer there is no. For example, in the U.S. the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) makes it clear that they will never contact taxpayers via social media. (Let alone send angry, threatening messages.) In all, legitimate businesses and organizations don’t use social media as a channel for official communications. They’ve accepted ways they will, and will not, contact you. If you have any doubts about a communication you received, contact the business or organization in question directly. Follow up with one of their customer service representatives.
Some phishing attacks involve attachments packed with malware, like ransomware, viruses, and keyloggers. If you receive a message with such an attachment, delete it. Even if you receive an email with an attachment from someone you know, follow up with that person. Particularly if you weren’t expecting an attachment from them. Scammers often hijack or spoof email accounts of everyday people to spread malware.
How’d that scammer get your phone number or email address anyway? Chances are, they pulled that info off a data broker site. Data brokers buy, collect, and sell detailed personal info, which they compile from several public and private sources, such as local, state, and federal records, plus third parties like supermarket shopper’s cards and mobile apps that share and sell user data. Moreover, they’ll sell it to anyone who pays for it, including people who’ll use that info for scams. You can help reduce those scam texts and calls by removing your info from those sites. Our Personal Data Cleanup scans some of the riskiest data broker sites and shows you which ones are selling your personal info.
Online protection software can protect you in several ways. First, it can offer web protection features that can identify malicious links and downloads, which can help prevent clicking them. Further, features like our web protection can steer you away from dangerous websites and block malware and phishing sites if you accidentally click on a malicious link. Additionally, our Scam Protection feature warns you of sketchy links in emails, texts, and messages. And overall, strong virus and malware protection can further block any attacks on your devices. Be sure to protect your smartphones in addition to your computers and laptops as well, particularly given all the sensitive things we do on them, like banking, shopping, and booking rides and travel.
The post How to Recognize a Phishing Email appeared first on McAfee Blog.
If you want to protect your identity, finances, and privacy online, you have a pretty powerful tool at hand. It’s online protection software. Today’s protection is built to get that job done.
For starters, online protection has evolved tremendously over recent years, making it more comprehensive than ever. It goes far beyond antivirus. And it protects more than your devices. It protects you. Your identity. Your finances. Your privacy.
Given how much of daily life has shifted to our computers and phones, like our finances and shopping, there’s a strong case for getting comprehensive online protection in place.
Granted, we’re an online protection company. And of course, we hope you’ll give our protection like McAfee+ a close look. With that, a quick rundown of what it can do for you and your identity, finances, and privacy helps. In all, it shows just how comprehensive this protection gets.
This form of protection starts with Identity Monitoring. It checks the dark web for your personal info, including email, government IDs, credit card and bank account numbers, and more. If any of it shows up on the dark web, it sends you an alert with guidance that can help protect you from identity theft.
Should the unexpected happen, our Identity Theft Coverage & Restoration can get you on the path to recovery. It offers up to $2 million in coverage for legal fees, travel, and funds lost because of identity theft. Further, a licensed recovery pro can do the work for you, taking the necessary steps to repair your identity and credit.
Another way identity thieves get what they want is through scam texts, emails, and messages. You can keep clear of their shady links with our new AI-powered Scam Protection. It automatically detects links that can send you to scam sites and other destinations that steal personal info. If you accidentally click? Don’t worry, we can block risky sites if you click on a suspicious link in texts, emails, social media, and more.
As you conduct so many of your finances online, it only makes sense that you can keep tabs on them just as easily. Features like our Credit Monitoring keep an eye on changes to your credit score, report, and accounts with timely notifications and guidance so you can take action to tackle identity theft.
And if you spot something out of the ordinary, our Security Freeze can quickly stop unauthorized access. It freezes credit card, bank, and utility accounts and prevents thieves from opening new ones in your name.
Rounding things out, you also have transaction monitoring features. They track transactions on credit cards and bank accounts — shooting you a notice if unusual activity occurs. They also track retirement accounts, investments, and loans for questionable transactions. Finally, further features can help prevent a bank account takeover and keep others from taking out short-term payday loans in your name.
Several features get the job done. Our Social Privacy Manager helps you adjust more than 100 privacy settings across your social media accounts in only a few clicks. This way, your personal info is only visible to the people you want to share it with.
Another big intrusion on your privacy comes at the hands of online data brokers. They drive a multi-billion-dollar industry by collecting, batching, and selling people’s personal info. To anyone. That includes hackers, spammers, and scammers who use it to their own ends. Yet you can get your info removed from some of the worst offenders out there. Personal Data Cleanup scans data broker sites and shows you which ones are selling your personal info and helps you remove it.
Another great tool for protecting your privacy comes in the form of a VPN. As a “virtual private network,” it encrypts your activity. Think of a VPN as a private tunnel for your internet traffic. It hides your search habits and history from those who might use that info to build a profile of you — whether to serve up targeted ads or to steal personal info for identity theft. In all, a VPN gives you one of the most secure ways you can go online.
The post How to Protect Your Identity, Finances, and Security Online appeared first on McAfee Blog.
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