How to protect yourself from phishing scams

Although emails are a fantastic way of communicating with people it does leave us open to being defrauded.  Anyone who has any kind of Gmail account or personal email will know that eventually it will start to be bombarded with unwanted spam.  For the most part a lot of this is pointless marketing spam. However, hidden away amongst the marketing is a phishing email.  These are simple random mass-produced emails sent out in the hopes of hooking somebody into giving out details. For reference, a good rule of thumb is that you should never give out your date of birth, postcode address or age onto the internet.  Only do this when you know you have called a reputable bank organisation.

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Simply put, the best way to avoid being caught out by phishing email is to treat everyone that you received with caution. Unless you are 100% certain that who has sent the email to you is genuine, assume that they are not. It is probably best to either quarantine it or just simply delete it.  Rule one of a phishing email is to not click on any of the links. Rule two is to not  immediately believe that what is said in the email is true. If it is posing to be from an official organisation, ring them and check if they have any business with you. Do not use the contact number on the email.

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Phishing emails are designed to catch you by surprise and get you to make a snap decision.   They will claim that you owe money and that you should ring the number on the email  immediately. If you do have any consequential loss it might be an idea to have these people in place – a Cyber Security Insurance firm like https://jmpcyberinsurance.co.uk/what-we-do/cyber-liability-insurance/.

Jack Henry