Phishing Scams: How To Avoid Them At All Costs
Phishing emails have been widely popular among scammers for decades. Individuals have been primary targets for scammers; however, they have managed to infiltrate national companies in various countries. TheClaimers, a funds recovery company, has warned about phishing emails as many of its clients have suffered from phishing scams, and overall the financial loss exceeds 10 billion US dollars. You might have experienced phishing or at least seen phishing emails in your inbox but might have deleted them thinking it was spam or junk. That is perhaps the best solution to phishing emails, ignoring them, and deleting them. However, many people are still not aware of the dangers of phishing and how easily you can fall for this scam. But you don’t have to worry. This article has all you need to know about it and how to avoid it.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a cybercrime involving impersonating a company’s senior employees or highly reputable institutions or organizations like banks and universities. The scammer uses emails, text messages, or phone calls to impersonate a person or organization in an attempt to steal your information. For example, the scammer might claim an issue with your bank account and ask you to provide your bank account number or credit/debit card details for verification. People get tricked into giving away their information because they worry about their bank funds being restricted. However, scammers can misuse their data to commit identity theft and steal their funds.
How to identify phishing emails/text messages/phone calls:
- Unknown Sender
If the sender of the email or text message is not on your contact list, you should discard it as it could be from a scammer. Similarly, an unsolicited or unexpected message from magazines or pages you did not subscribe to could be a scammer.
- Hyperlinks/Attachments
Phishing emails or text messages contain hyperlinks leading to a fraudulent website impersonating an existing organization. The website requests your personal information, which is tell stolen by the scammer. You can hover over the link to see the webpage you will be directed to and determine whether the website is fake or not. Spelling mistakes in the URL of the website or its contents could help you identify it as a fraudulent website. There might also be attachments in the email; if clicked, a virus gets downloaded on your device, compromising your data.
- Too Good To Be True
Phishing emails might claim you’ve won a lottery or the latest phone to lure people into providing their banking details and address. You should avoid clicking on such emails or messages making unrealistic claims because nothing comes for free easily.
- Urgent Tone
You can identify phishing scams by paying attention to the tone of the message, email, or phone call. If you are pressured into providing your information or making a payment quickly due to the offer being for a limited time, it is probably a scam. Scammers create a sense of urgency that tricks people into hurriedly giving away their information without thinking about it carefully. Hence, you should ignore such messages or emails.
Have trouble identifying phishing emails from spam emails? Or have you repeatedly been contacted by scammers? Contact the consultancy company TheClaimers today! The company provides free consultations on cases related to various scams and can help you report scammers.
How to avoid phishing scams:
- Use spam filters in emailing apps to filter out possible phishing emails. Similarly, you can also enable spam filters in your text message application. The filters check the message’s origin, appearance, and the software used to send it to determine whether it is spam or from a verified address on your contact list.
- Install anti-malware software and regularly update it to prevent fraudulent or suspicious links from opening on your browser. The browser maintains a list of fake websites and prevents you from opening them as it could compromise your information.
- Change the setting of your devices to automatically update the software because software updates improve the device’s security. Thus, it stays protected from possible attacks by scammers and hackers.
- Enable ‘two-factor authentication’ for your accounts which requires you to answer security questions or enter two or more credentials to access the data. This would make it difficult for scammers or hackers to easily access your accounts.
- Back up your data on cloud storage and an external hard drive in case your data gets stolen or deleted. You should ensure the backups are not connected to your home network where the original files are present.
If you’ve fallen victim to phishing scams, get a free consultancy on your case with TheClaimers today! The fund’s recovery company can track down scammers with their tech specialists and even take legal action to recover your funds.