Rise in Phishing Emails – Stay Alert and Stay Safe
As phishing scams continue to grow in both frequency and sophistication, it’s more important than ever to stay vigilant when checking your inbox. Cybercriminals are using increasingly deceptive tactics to trick recipients into revealing sensitive information, clicking on malicious links, or downloading harmful attachments.
To help you stay protected, we’ve compiled a list of practical tips to identify and avoid phishing emails. Please take a moment to review the following guidelines and share them with your colleagues, friends, and family.
1. Check the Sender’s Address: Always double-check the sender’s email address for any unfamiliar domain names that differ slightly from the legitimate ones you recognise.
2. Spot Grammatical and Spelling Errors: Phishing emails often contain poor grammar and spelling mistakes. Legitimate organisations typically proofread their emails, so be wary of poorly written content.
3. Avoid Suspicious Links and Attachments: Refrain from clicking on links or downloading attachments from unidentified or suspicious sources, as they could lead to malicious websites or contain malware.
4. Beware of Urgent Language: Phishers or hackers often create a sense of urgency to provoke recipients into quick action. Be cautious of emails claiming you must act immediately to avoid a consequence.
5. Verify Email Signatures: Legitimate business emails usually include professional signature blocks with contact details. A missing or inconsistent signature can be a clue to fraudulent emails.
6. Analyse the Email Tone and Style: Compare the tone and style of the email with previous communications you have received from the sender. Noticeable differences may signal a phishing attempt.
7. Check for Generic Greetings: Phishing attempts often use generic greetings like “Dear Customer” instead of addressing recipients by their real names, indicating a lack of personalisation typical of mass phishing attempts.
8. Too Good to Be True Offers: If an offer presented in an email appears exceptionally generous or unrealistic, it is likely a scam.
9. Verify Links Without Clicking: Hover over any links without clicking them to preview the destination URL. Look for mismatches between the link text and the URL it points to.
10. Request for Personal Information: Legitimate organisations generally would not ask for sensitive details via email. Be cautious if such requests are made.
11. Be Wary of Pop-ups: Emails containing pop-ups asking for your login credentials are typically phishing attempts. Legitimate organisations typically do not use pop-ups to collect sensitive information.
12. Look for Secure Websites: Ensure any website you visit starts with https:// and displays a security padlock icon in the address bar. This indicates that the link is secure.
13. Use Email Security Tools: Use email filters and security tools to detect and block phishing attempts before they reach your inbox.
14. Stay Informed About Phishing Techniques: Scammers constantly evolve their strategies to bypass security measures, so stay updated on the latest phishing tactics.
Most importantly, if you receive any communication from us and it looks suspect, leave it alone and call us. If you receive an invoice for payment from us, call us as we don’t charge fees so any invoice from us is immediately suspect. More broadly, don’t transfer funds to third parties or pay anybody online until you have called them and verbally confirmed bank details.
Given the continuing emergence and sophistication of cyber fraud risks, we strongly urge all clients to regularly review their IT infrastructure and risk mitigation software.
Head Office | p: 07 54 702 194 | e: mike@mikephippsfinance.com.au
We are seeing an increase in the uptake of electric cars, bikes and scooters.
You must be logged in to post a comment.