We’ve all been there. Well I hope not.
We have all seen the clutter in our inbox. (Yes, that’s better.) We want it to STOP! With all the tools out there, it still gets through. We need to do our part to identify what is malicious and what to avoid.
Where does spam come from?
There’s no one place that we get all these unsolicited emails from. The real question is WHY? The answer for most, MONEY. I have a great crawfish boil recipe, as stated in newsletters in the past. Let’s say I wanted to sell my recipe for $5 (Sorry, I won’t). I could go online and buy a list of emails for $0.10/ea and just send thousands for the hope I could easily make my money back from a few purchases. This is just a small example of a minor spam operation. The major ones get more devious.
Email Phishing – This kind of email scam generally continues onto our next section. You will receive an email from someone asking you to view an invoice, document, etc. To view this, you may be directed to a sign in site with Office, Google, or Exchange sign in screens. Once you enter your credentials, which will error out, they have access to your account and your contact list to begin spamming your contacts, create email rules to delete email coming in, and possibly gaining admin access to the email account as a whole. How can you prevent this? Your email provider will never ask for your password. If you do click on a link that takes you to a website, take a look at the address bar. This is generally not filled with legitimate Microsoft or Google addresses.
Email Spoofing- This is where it can become scary. We see an email from someone we know asking for a gift card, wire transfer, or anything related to a payment. The spammer also states they are not available to talk. This can cause unauthorized access to bank accounts or transactions.
Can it be stopped? Most spammers keep their email and servers active for very short periods of time. This makes the filtering of this email very difficult. If you do receive something out of the ordinary, contact your IT support and the individual that email is getting spoofed by phone. This will immediately let you know it is a scam. Are you at your desktop or laptop? Most emails will show you the actual address when you place your cursor over the name. This is a telltale sign the individual isn’t who they say they are. In the end, we must stay vigilant as end users to keep ourselves and the individuals we interact with, safe. Want to find out more and how to stay safe? Contact us at firstname.lastname@example.org