Phishing Attacks: How to Spot Fake Emails

Phishing emails often pretend to be from your bank, credit card company, eBay or PayPal. However, you also get legitimate messages from these companies, so how do you tell the real ones from the fakes? Real emails often contain your name and may start “Dear John Smith”, but phishers don’t know you, so fakes have something general like “Dear customer”. If an email isn’t addressed specifically to you, you should suspect it is a fake. Many phishing emails talk about technical problems that require you to click a link and enter your account details. Banks, eBay, PayPal, and so on, never lose your details and they don’t need to ask you for them. The links in phishing emails point to fake websites with wrong addresses, so check the status bar when the mouse hovers over a link or the URL in Internet Explorer’s address bar if you do actually find yourself on a phishing site. It is best not to click links in emails because fake addresses can be disguised. Phishers’ response to advice not to click links in emails is to provide a bogus telephone number and ask people to ring the bank instead. An automated response asks you for your account details, which they then use to relieve you of your cash. Another common attribute of phishing scams is poor English – if an email is badly written it is probably a fake. The best way to avoid being caught out by phishing scams is never to click links in emails relating to sites that might hold sensitive information about you, such as credit card details. If you get a message supposedly from your bank, eBay or PayPal about a problem, just start Internet Explorer and type the usual address into your web browser. Log on and you will soon see if there really is a problem or not. If you are in doubt about an email’s legitimacy or think you have inadvertently given away your personal details, contact your bank or the company immediately via contacts on their official websites.

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