How to Recognize and Prevent Phishing Attempts | WisdomPlexus

How to Recognize and Prevent Phishing Attempts

Remember, hackers attack almost every 40 seconds over the world and this may go up to 14 seconds

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.

Guidelines to Identify Phishing attempts

Think before you click!

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.

Look for typos

Another way to identify such emails is to look for grammatical errors, typos, misspellings, or bad links to images in websites and emails.

Look out for those Dear Customer mails

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.

Check your online accounts

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.

Be aware of pop-ups

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.

Now, how do we avoid phishing attempts?

Type in URL

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.

Educate your employees

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.

Anti-malware software

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.

You may also like to Read:

Cyber Threat Business Should Expect in 2019

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Protect your firewall with top eight security measures

Secure Cyberspace: How is Cyberspace Different from the Physical World?

About Jason Hoffman

I am the Director of Sales and Marketing at Wisdomplexus, capturing market share with E-mail marketing, Blogs and Social media promotion. I spend major part of my day geeking out on all the latest technology trends like artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, cloud computing, 5G and many more. You can read my opinion in regards to these technologies via blogs on our website.