How to recognize phishing email messages and links

Phishing email messages, websites, and phone calls are designed to steal money. Cybercriminals can do this by installing malicious software on your computer or stealing personal information off of your computer. Cybercriminals also use social engineering to convince you to install malicious software or hand over your personal information under false pretenses. They might email you, call you on the phone, or convince you to download something off of a website. Source: http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/phishing-symptoms.aspx

What does a phishing email message look like?

Let us have a look at what a typical phishing email looks like and 6 indicators that something is not right here.

  1. THE SENDER EMAIL ADDRESS: For a Selection Committee, the recipient email address looks questionable.
  2. THE SUBJECT: Looks questionable
  3. THE SALUTATION: If it was genuine, there would have been a name and a title here
  4. THE MESSAGE TEXT: Does not look like it was written professionally
  5. THE LINK: DO NOT CLICK TO OPEN! When you hover over the link, it points you to a different url to the supposed sender email link
  6. THE SIGNATURE: Does not have contact details.

A lot of companies are struggling to deal with cybercrime because some of it is brought onto the organisation’s network unknowingly.