Stop the scams: Protecting yourself from phishing emails

This week, news broke about two celebrity suicides: Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.

Internet criminals/scum are going to exploit these deaths in a number of ways, so be careful with anything related to this sad news: emails, attachments, any social media (especially Facebook), texts on your phone, anything. There will be a number of scams related to this, so Think Before You Click!

To protect yourself from phishing email scams, use caution when viewing email. Unless you’re expecting an attachment from someone, don’t download or open it. The same goes for zip files and html files. Be careful with strange links as well.

Many times phishing emails look like a legit company, but are redirecting the links to a malware site. (See example below.) If it’s questionable, always log in directly to the website you’re concerned about rather than using the link in the email.

Phishing emails can even come through that look like they’re from a friend. (Their email has likely been compromised or spoofed.)

Unfortunately I end up getting these a lot. The hacker has pulled the address book information in the hopes of getting more people to click on the bad links.

You’ll receive an email that looks like it’s from someone you know, sending you a link and suggesting you “check this out!”

If you look closely, you can see that their email address has been spoofed and the link is usually a shortened URL so you can’t even tell where you’re being directed. See the example below from one I just received this morning.

Always “Think before you click.”

Another point to mention and be aware of, is that there isn’t always a direct link relating to a phishing attack. They could be asking for specific information or to have you contact them for further instructions.  For example – having you call a number to contact a “support tech” because your computer is compromised, then they ask you to pay for a program or ask for remote access into your computer.

If you’re unsure if the link/file/email is legit, contact the sender in a separate email, one you know is correct, don’t just reply to the email as you may get bogus info.

Yes, that happened to me just last month. 6 emails back and forth with someone posing as my boss (looked like a legit personal email account), asking me to purchase and email him several hundreds of dollars in gift card codes for a client. When we got to the point of how I would pay for the purchases and he replied “with personal funds” with the promise to “reimburse me before close of work”, that’s when I went face to face with my boss for confirmation & realized that I was being scammed. True story!

Tricksy little buggers.

As an extra layer of protection, make sure you keep your system secure with updated anti-virus programs and keep your data backed up regularly.

Stay safe out there!