Phishing Lures: How to Avoid Them.

'Have you been phished lately?' is a question most of us could be hearing a lot. Every time the topic of phishing comes up, the need to be vigilant comes to a top of mind state as well, only to recede to the background till the next time we are reminded. Sure, anti-spam filters help a lot and banish most of these unwanted emails to where they belong but there could just be a few steps you could take that would serve as a kind of armor against phishing scams.

First off, all you need to remember is that your bank, your tax authorities or indeed any company, even if they are an online business, do not suffer from memory loss or dementia. They have your details and they will not ask you to send vital information like your username and password - most definitely not in an email. Sure, they might drive you crazy when you're trying desperately to get in touch with them but they do not want you to mail them your details - most emphatically not.

Once you've set up the first hurdle, more in your mind than anywhere else, the rest comes easy. Even if your suspicion antenna is raised a teeny-weeny bit, go take a look to see whether the sender has sent the mail to anyone else too. You could find that they've sent it to a whole bunch of people and it's there for all to see. Now that's something no established business would do, not with the strict privacy policy that most of them follow. You would do well to check their email address too. Does it sound like the URL of the bank or the company that you think it's from? If it's a 'phisher', you'll probably find that it doesn't match. There could be words there that are spelt wrong or maybe an email address that sounds nothing like the company it is purported to come from at all. This is a good way to get the alarm bells in your mind ringing.
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Never trust luring email asking for passwords, PIN, account information or other vital information.

 

Start at the beginning; never click on a link in an email message. Rather open the site manually from your favorites list in your browser or enter the correct URL in the browser. Never reply to email messages that require your password; the bank doesn't need your password or your pin number to access your account on their mainframe.