21/03/2023
HOW TO RECOGNISE SUSPICIOUS E-MAILS: DON'T BE FOOLED
The probability of success of these attacks is currently around 80% and all of them are random and fully automated, i.e. the cybercriminal does not have to send each of these emails to different users. Therefore, the cybercriminal only has to configure it, supervise the attack, and then collect the results. Or, in other words, the information obtained, can vary from personal data to passwords, credit card numbers, money transfers, or even the installation of viruses and malware.
For this reason, and as users, both personal and professional, of all types of communication technologies, in today's TIP we would like to remind you once again of the following indications for recognizing fraudulent e-mails in time:
Look at the sender: cybercriminals often impersonate identities of people who are trusted by the user, so they can either put an alias (First name, Surname) to a completely unknown email address, or they can create an address very similar to that of the original sender by changing one letter (such as "t" for "i").
Watch out for obvious spelling mistakes: we can all make mistakes in writing, but in phishing attacks, it is very common for cybercriminals to use machine translators to translate certain sentences without making any sense. In addition, if the sender is someone you know, you may or may not recognize the way they write in the message.
If you are asked for something urgently, be alert: this does not mean that all e-mails we receive from, for example, a family member, a customer/supplier, or a manager should be ignored because they are short and urgent. But we should be suspicious the moment the subject matter, the request itself, or even the information we are urgently asked to provide does not fit.
Especially if you are asked to enter a form, click on a link, or if you know the sender, but do not have a direct relationship with them (e.g. a "CEO fraud" phishing scam).
Check links without clicking on them directly: if they are very long links, with signs and symbols rather than clear words, we can usually suspect that it is a possible link, at the very least suspicious.
However, even seemingly correct links may have been manipulated. One option for checking is to leave the mouse cursor over the link until a box with the real link appears, and we can see whether they match or whether we should alert the user to a possible phishing attempt.
