5 ways to spot a phishing email
Phishing is all about casting a wide net and is characterized by being impersonal and generic. Therefore, there are often clues or signs that you are dealing with a phishing email. On this page we will present some of the most common.
Language and text clues
The language in the email
If you receive an email from your bank or another institution of your home country that is not in your native language it should immediately raise alarms.
Another tell-tale-sign is bad language. Your local bank or a big corporation like Amazon or PayPal should know how to write correctly. Phishing emails are often Google translated from one language to another which thankfully enough leaves its marks in form of grammatical errors etc.
No personal salutation
A company in which you are a customer knows your name. If a company in which you are a customer salutes you with “Dear customer” or something similar it could be a reason for concern.
They request personal information
A bank or an authority will not ask for your personal data via email. If they would want this type of information they send by normal mail or contact you via their own channels e.g., app or internet portal.
Be wary of attachments!
Phishing emails with malicious attachments most often target company email addresses but are also sent to private email addresses. Here it is a matter of using your common sense. Never open an attachment if you do not know who the sender is or if anything seems off (see all the points in this list). If you open an attachment like this malware will be installed on your computer which can result in everything from that all your files will be locked (or the whole companies files) or that cyber criminals can spy on everything you or your company does.
Technical clues
The sender email adress
Phishing email addresses often masquerades as being from a legit source by creating email addresses that seem legit at first glance but really are not. For instance, the legit Netflix email address for account support is “info@account.netflix.com” a fake address might look like this: info@account.netfliix.com. In this case it is the extra “i” that gives it away.
The URL
If the email sender instructs you to follow a link you should always be observant of the URL (the web address that shows up in your browser). Hoover over the link text (without clicking). If it differs from the link text, it is misspelled, or the domain seems off there is a high risk that it is a scam.
Large and established companies use well established domains. If you want to be completely safe; never follow a link from an email, always type it yourself via your browser. Above all, if the sender seems shady or off in any way you should avoid clicking any links in the first place.
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