The following content is from an article by KnowBe4 Security Awareness and Training solutions.
Fraudsters are constantly coming up with ways to get sensitive information from trusting people. One common tactic is called Phishing and we’ll explain how they use it to collect your personal information without you even realizing it.
Triangle believes it’s important to keep you informed and educated on how to keep your data and personal information safe in today’s digital world.
With a drastic increase in Phishing activities this past year, we would like to remind you to stay vigilant! There are several things that we all should be looking for prior to taking any action within an email. Here are a few:
- Is it expected? Did you know this email was coming? If not, take extra precaution.
- Is it reasonable that you would get this sort of email? If not, take extra precaution.
- Does it have grammatical errors? This is especially important if it is coming from a reputable vendor.
- Does it have a link? Always hover over the link to confirm it is what it says it is. For an example, if an email is coming from emailaddress@google.com, and when you hover over a link in the email it says website.yahoo.com, that is a red flag.
- Does it have an attachment? Take extra precaution prior to opening attachments. Attachments can be malicious programs trying to appear to be legitimate.
- Does it try to make you panic? A very common technique used in phishing emails is to try to make you panic by means of requiring immediate actions or simply by making it appear to come from a supervisor or other high-level individual. By acting too quickly to prevent whatever form of threat the email is giving or to impress the supervisor you believe the email is from, you react without thinking.
Remember: stop and think before acting can help prevent you from being phished.
