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The probability of success of these attacks is currently at 80% and all of them are carried out randomly and fully automated, i.e. without the cybercriminal having to send each of these emails to different users. Therefore, all you have to do is set it up, monitor the attack and then collect the results. In other words, the information obtained can vary from personal data to passwords, credit card numbers, money transfers or even the installation of viruses and malware.
For this reason, and as users, both personally and professionally, of all types of communication technologies, in today’s TIP we would like to remind you once again of the following indications for recognizing fraudulent e-mails in time:
- Note the sender: cybercriminals often impersonate people who are trusted by the user, so they can either put an alias (First Name, Last Name) to a completely unknown email address, or they can create an address very similar to the original sender by changing one letter (such as “t” for “i”).
- Pay attention to obvious spelling mistakes.We can all make mistakes when writing, however, when it comes to phishing attacks, it is very common for cybercriminals to use automatic translators to translate certain phrases without any sense. In addition, if the sender is an acquaintance, we may or may not recognize their way of writing in the message.
- If something is urgently demanded of you, be on alert: This does not mean that every email we receive from, for example, a family member, a customer/supplier or a manager should be omitted because it is short and urgent. But we should be suspicious the moment the subject matter, the request itself or even the information we are urgently required to provide does not fit. Especially if it is indicated that it is entered in a form, clicking on a link or if we know the sender, but we do not have such a direct relationship with him (example of this could be, a phishing of the “CEO fraud” type).
- Check the links without clicking directly: The most usual thing is that if they are very long links, with signs and symbols and not clear words, we can suspect that it is a possible link, at least suspicious. However, the apparently correct links may also have been tampered with. A verification option is to leave the mouse cursor over the link, until a box with the real link appears. So you will be able to see if they match or, on the contrary, we must alert of a possible phishing attack.