Recognizing Spam In Your Email Inbox
In the last couple of months, a little bug has been circulating through email inboxes. Phishing or Spam emails are easy to be mistaken for true, honest people in your contacts. Let’s dive into what spam and phishing emails are, how to recognize the signs and prevent your information from falling into the wrong hands.
What is Spam?
We aren’t talking about that delicious breakfast side that goes with your scrambled eggs in the morning. We are talking about the spam that haunts your email inbox. Spam email is also known as ‘junk mail,’ are defined as unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email. Most spam emails can be filtered through your email provider and rest in your spam inbox until they are deleted or filtered by you. In some instances, spammers will disguise the origin of the message to work around this anti-spam software. Once a spammer has gathered emails from a public source, they send unsolicited messages to those emails. These messages can disguise a virus that is meant to destroy your computer or gather valuable information. To avoid your email from being public, visit the settings of any profile or account you hold online with that email.
What is Phishing?
Like spam emails, phishing is just another form of the monster. A scam, where individuals pose as a credible business or close contact to convince you to share private information. These phishing scams can be easily identified through close examination. Most phishing emails do not directly address the recipient and request immediate action on an account update or payment information. Look for grammatical errors. Most credible institutions go through a barrage of edits before the final copy is live. Usually, these phishing emails include multiple links that redirect to copycat web URLs. Recognizing these few signs will let you know the email is illegitimate.
Other Types of Email Fraud
There are many types of email fraud, but they all have the common goal of cheating you out of your information or money. Scammers looking for your personal information are usually looking to gain the status of identity theft. Another kind of email fraud is those that encourage you to make a payment on a prize that you have won with the promise of swift reimbursement. Some email fraud claim to be an FBI agent or authoritative organization employee to intimidate pay from the recipient.
Don’t Fall Victim to Fraud
Our information is out in the open and if not properly concealed can fall into a scammers hands. There are ways to combat these scammers through various software and spotting the signs of an illegitimate email. Scammers are getting smarter and finding ways to be more crafty. There are different types of software, apps, websites, etc that are constantly keeping up with the scammers in order to protect your data privacy. Do not give any personal or financial information over email. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Posted: Feb 06, 2019