Email Scam Check – How to Perform an Email Scam Check

An email scam check is an essential part of a strong cybersecurity program. Cyber criminals only need one mistake from just a single employee to make their attacks successful, so you and your team must be confident in your ability to spot phishing attempts. The best way to prevent phishing is to examine each and every email for red flags, such as grammar mistakes or inconsistencies in the email address or link. You can also hover your mouse over a link to see the real destination address (without clicking), and report any that don’t match up.

Email Scam Check: Identifying and Avoiding Scams

Some of the biggest warning signs in an email are embedded links and downloads, or requests to open a cloud storage document or file. Scammers know that if they include lots of these, you’re more likely to click, which could automatically download malware to your computer or lead you to a fake website to hand over your personal details. These credentials can be used to steal information such as passwords, credit card numbers, bank login details and Social Security numbers, or sold on the Dark Web.

Keeping your software up to date can help prevent this, but email attachments and links are still a major threat. If you’re unsure of any links, hover your mouse over them to see the real destination address (don’t click!) and use a search engine to determine if the URL is legit or not. Only the root domain – the part after the second to last dot but before the first slash – is important; anything else can be faked.