How to Spot a Phishing Email

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack commonly used by cybercriminals to steal user and personal data such as login credentials, credit card numbers, etc. 

This is usually done when the attacker masquerades themselves as someone else or part of a trusted entity to trick the user to click a malicious link in an email which can lead to a ransomware attack. 

Email security is one of the most sought after cybersecurity services in the UK and it can help strengthen your cyberinfrastructure from potential phishing attacks. 

However, it is also important that users have adequate security awareness training to be able to identify these attacks for themselves and mitigate user risk. 

Here are four ways that you can identify phishing emails: 

1. Public Email Domain: Most organisations except for certain small businesses will have their own email domain and company accounts. The most obvious way of identifying a phishing email is if the sender uses a public email domain such as “@gmail.com” or “@hotmail.com”. To determine the legitimacy of an email, make sure that the domain name matches the apparent sender of the email.
2. Misspelt Domain Name: In some cases, criminal hackers will use fake domain names in their emails to better their chances of confusing their targets. Phishing emails that pretend to be a trusted entity or organisation will often have the domain name in their email – but it will be misspelt. Make sure to carefully check the spelling of the domain names of emails that you’re unsure about. 
3. Poorly Written: Another common way of identifying whether an email is a scam is to check the quality of spelling and grammar. Scammers and cybercriminals often use a spellchecker or translation machine when crafting phishing emails. This makes it easier to identify as the tone of voice and nature of the email are often what can signify the legitimacy of the email. 
4. Sense of Urgency: Scammers thrive on creating a sense of urgency to make users more likely to fall prey to their attacks. Phishing emails usually create a scenario in which the user will have to “act now or else it will be too late”. For example, phishing emails often pretend to be organisations such as PayPal, Netflix or Windows as users often actively use their services and will be more likely to act fast in terms of payment or a problem occurring from them. 

We Can Help: 

In today’s digital world, your business can’t survive without having the right cyber security. We’d love to show you why we are the right fit for the job. 

From cloud email security to security awareness training, you can rest assured that all your email security and capacity building needs are taken care of. 

As leading cyber security experts, we’d be delighted to connect with you and share more about our cyber security solutions! 

Get in touch with us today at [email protected]